Position: Lat: 85.49 South Long: 86.75 West

Miles covered: 13

Total miles covered: 352

Air temperature:

Conditions: Good


The team report that the going has become harder, with a lot more uphill work. They have encountered some small sastrugi and the ice today was sticky with some harder patches. However, they still managed 13 miles and their general situation is excellent.

The big excitement of the day was that they have now reached the line of longitude that they were aiming for and have now turned finally onto a due South heading. To date
they have been heading slightly West of South to get themselves into the best position to get through the Thiel Mountains and also to avoid a large area of crevasse fields later on in the expedition. They know that the going is now going to get tougher, with a lot of uphill work and progressively colder weather, hopefully their progress to date will stand them in good stead for the rigours to come.

They have 271 miles to go to the South Pole.

They are talking directly to base camp in Patriot Hills tonight, to
finalise arrangements for their resupply; hopefully this will be scheduled for a position somewhere at the top of the Thiel Mountains, allowing them to make the climb with as light a load as possible. There are a number of optionsto them, with quite a few flights going over them in the next 5-10 days, weather will play a big part in the final decision. As of this
morning they have 10 days fuel and food left.

Rosie gave her latest report, 'Talking Turkey', which puts a new slant on Christmas for all of us.

Anyone looking out for news of the team should monitor ITN on New Year's Eve - the first interview is still scheduled for 09:55GMT; there should also be a piece in the Femail section of the Daily Mail on Thursday 30 December.

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