At long last we have a concrete sense of being on our way. On Saturday evening we took the sledges to the airport, and loaded them on the aircraft. If the weather is good enough, the Expedition will be underway. Two light aircraft will transport us 1000 km north from Resolute, to the shores of the Arctic Marine Ice-sheet.

During the day we continued to fine-tune our sledge packing, but most of the day was used up frying bacon!! The Jerky that we've been missing so sorely did not, after all, arrive in time. So this morning we went to the shop and bought 60 kilograms of bacon! Frying that much bacon is a bigger job than you can imagine. Thank goodness we had the use of the hotel kitchen.

When we took the fully-packed sledges to the airport, they were weighed … our surprise was great! We thought we had calculated everything to the last gram, but the weight of the sledges varied from 140 to 160 kg … more than we had planned for.

Now we're off to bed for a couple of hours, and then the marathon begins. The Expedition is ready!

And all is well with the Expedition.