Thursday 3rd, 21:00

Sat in Terminal 5 at Heathrow, contemplating 24 hours of travelling. Santiago, 14 hours flight time, a five hour wait at Santiago International Airport then a 3 1/2 hour flight to Punta Arenas in southern Chile.

They say the journey is part of the experience! Sometimes I have my doubts. My Mother knows I struggle to keep still for five minutes… but for 14 hours, that’s enough to send even the most patient person over the edge.

Punta Arenas, very few people will have heard or even know where this small Chilean town is. It’s worth Googling. It’s a town on the very edge of civilisation. Beyond is the Drake Passage that separates South America’s Cape Horn and the Antarctic Peninsula.

It is at the base of the Antarctic Peninsula where lie the Ellsworth Mountains that are my final destination. Mount Vinson, the highest mountain in Antarctica. At 4,892 metres it’s not particularly high, very similar to Mont Blanc that James and I climbed in the summer, in fact. The difference is its location. It’s in what is a vast snowy desert, where the ice sheets can be over two kilometres thick and the nearest Costa is over a four hour flight away!

It’s not the coldest place on the planet, but it comes very close and for this reason, rather than the altitude, I’m a little nervous. I’ve walked and climbed in some very cold places in the Himalaya, but nothing that will be this sustained, with very few places to hide. So, I can hear many of you saying ‘why’? There will be moments on this trip where I too will be asking that, but I’m sure there will be far more moments when I will be on a high with excitement and wonder, at what promises to be a unique trip.

How do I feel about this trip? I’ve spent 2 1/2 years training for firstly Kilimanjaro, then Mont Blanc. I took up biking and completed the Prudential Ride London 100 for Scope, a 75 mile charity ride for a local hospice, James and I cycled from sea level to 1,200 metres on a 60 mile ride to Ronda in Spain and cycled countless miles to work. I’ve dragged a tyre whilst carrying an 18kg pack up and down Croft Quarry. I’ve even been camping, in a tent! Something I thought I’d seen the back of 20 years ago. Spend many enjoyable days walking in North Wales, Scotland and Derbyshire. And I’ve trained with Ramone week in and week out at Evington Gym. How do I feel about this trip? Bloody exhausted, I can tell you! I have to admit I like to have a Sherpa and, funnily enough, it makes the walk/climb easier. So the thought of pulling and carrying 25kg’s of gear I find a little daunting. Am I ‘pack fit’? I think I’m about to find out.

Friday 4th 09:20 (local time)

As the plane landed I took stock of the other passengers as we waited to disembark, they were nearly all sixty-somethings, travelling the world in their retirement, some going off on an Antarctic cruise, others going trekking in the Andes and others reliving what they had done years before…but what there was a lack of, was young people. People with no particular place to go, travellers taking a year out before going to university, before the reality of life takes hold and forces them into that mundane world of work and debt.

The thing that frightened me the most was that I am very nearly in the first category, the sixty-somethings, no, please, not yet!!!