Below are Laura's and my own diary entries, respectively, after our first day of walking in Patagonia: We wake around 7am and pack up the tent with few words. We walk, enjoying the morning peace and our rested legs. Before an hour is up, I feel a flash of irritation - at the incessant flies, at Tim, at my pack or at the trip itself. The irritation grows until I'm nearly in tears. I look at Tim and realise h ...

Laura writes about our first few, hard days' walking along the Carretera Austral: The last two days were tough. While they were happening, we were in a zone, a single-minded, zombie state focused only on walking nearly 100km in two days to make our ferry. Now finished, the lowest points stand out in stark relief. Throbbing, burning feet, sweltering heat, aching shoulders and utter exhaustion - combined with ...

Laura's reflections after another difficult stretch down south: With aching shoulders and throbbing feet, today I spent several hours pondering the question of hardship on expeditions. I understand that suffering means the ultimate goal is much sweeter and that in hindsight, pain will seem a mere inconvenience - indeed, my memories of the Carretera Austral are now largely of glaciers and condors rather than ...

This is a piece I wrote after our route in South America joined a popular trail: Because our route today took in part of a relatively popular walk, we have the luxury of an information sheet containing times, distances, descriptions and, notably, an ascent profile. This showed a steep 400-metre ascent over a short distance. The route was described as 'tough'. I have no idea how much up and down we did over ...

Long days slogging next to a road have Laura questioning the purpose of our South America trip... Don't get me wrong, I love expeditions - whatever that term means. I love a physical challenge, feeling my body become harder and tougher and pushing myself both physically and mentally. I love being outside, followering the natural rhytms of the sun, embracing the elements and living simply with few possession ...

These two entries come after a long period of travel in an attempt to reach the west coast of Chile. Laura first: Dusty clothes, sandpaper throat, gritty eyes. Thirsty. Sun-induced headache, hurts to move. Thirsty. Listless torpor punctuated only by brief spells of action as we drag ourselves up to flag down the infrequent vehicles. Heavy heart as another car speeds by, scattering us with stones and leaving ...

This is something I wrote shortly after reaching Patagonia last month: From Rio De Janeiro to Buenos Aires and Comodoro Rivadavia, things have gotten stranger. Big cities the world over have many similarities as a result of increasing globalisation but the further out you get, the more the differences start to show. From the little we saw of Rio, it seemed pretty cool and some things were certainly novel - ...

Our diary entries one week before departure for South America. This is what Laura wrote (probably at her desk): Christmas is coming and Patagonia preparations are going well. Parcels containing shiny new kit arrive at work almost every day, and every spare moment is spent planning the trip. The contrast between my working life and what we are about to do is deeply enjoyable – most of my colleagues are baffl ...

In Patagonia, Laura and I each kept a diary. Instead of just documenting the events of the day, we took the opportunity to write a brief reflection/pondering around an idea that the journey had sparked. We wrote a couple of entries before we departed for which the brief was to write 200 words on the broad topic of what the trip meant to us. Here is mine: "This trip to South America has been a pipe dream of ...

My publishers just sent me a copy of the front cover design for the book I'm writing: How To Get To The North Pole. My deadline for writing is Christmas, after which the book is due for release in Spring next year. It should be about £10 to buy with individual chapters available as ebooks. ...

Stupid. I should have known that late October was not a good time to go cycling in sandals but I'd come back from holiday the night before and hadn't adjusted my thermostat. It is cold. To make matters worse, the first three miles are all downhill, littered with traffic lights and choked with commuters so I can't even heat myself by pedalling harder. I straddle my bike at a red light and shove my hands into ...

You may have had a shower, washed your clothes and even had a shave of your expedition beard or leg hair but until you feel the familiar flow of the shower in your bathroom, see your weathered face in its mirror and slip on clothes that have not been worn every day for a month, you are not quite done. Perhaps you have eaten to satiety and pushed on through dessert until those desperate rations are but a dis ...