I woke at 5am and, feeling the chill in the air and shuffled out of my toasty warm sleeping bag to try and coax some life out of the fire. After extensive poking and raking I found some embers and delicately balanced some of the drier incendiary nuggets in that area, resisting the urge to use my lungs as bellows. I left the fire to do its thing and headed out into the remote Mongolian morning and the view that greeted me was incredible. The sun had not yet risen and a pale pink light bathed the sub-zero amphitheatre of mountains around us where the huge flock of goats were contentedly settled around the main ger, with the faithful dogs perched by the door keeping watch. I braved the toilet shack and as I returned to the settlement I was delighted to see smoke starting to drift from the chimney of our ger.

As I gratefully ducked back inside I saw the orange glow flickering on the wall and piled more 'logs' into the stove before standing over it to try and warm the chill from my body. Only now did I pay attention to the other 3 bodies, piled high with blankets, not a single extremity exposed, snoozing quietly on the floor of the ger. I smiled at the remoteness of the situation as the stove warmed me, before venturing back outside to try and photograph the sunrise.

Mission accomplished, and very pleased with myself I snuggled back into my cocoon and drifted back to sleep. At 7 the son of the family came to relight the stove, looking almost affronted that it was already roaring and at 8am on the dot the pile of blankets next to me stirred, announcing Bob's return to consciousness.

We rose, packed our bags and ate a breakfast of pastries and toast before heading into the sunshine where the air temperature had warmed up significantly. Eggy and Victor were both bouncing around with general enthusiasm as we watched the father and son treating the goat kids, which appeared to have diphtheria, by craftily catching them with a pole snare and pasting what looked like tar on their ulcerated gums. We loaded 'Olive' and after firm handshakes bounced off across the tundra.

It was blissfully quiet for about 2 minutes before Eggy remembered his sound system and we were soon listening to Mongolian throat singers as we headed towards the mountains. We disembarked by an old hut and headed up the rocky slope, dotted with purple anenomes to a large rock wall which had a circular cave in it. We scrambled in and at the back there was a rocky porthole, only 2ft across which lead into a second, smaller darker chamber which was reported to be magic. It was certainly very cool.

We dragged ourselves back into the sunlight before heading on along the ridge to where another bank of rock had an equally circular hole, and on top of this was a collection of sticks in which nestled a baby eagle! It was an incredible sight from only 50m away, to watch the huge hooked beak and shining eyes carefully observing us. We had seen the adults circling earlier but they had headed off to search for its rodent prey elsewhere so we descended back to the truck and on through the valley.

We passed through a larger settlement, picking up some milk powder and proper tea then continuing. We ended up in a valley surrounded by rocky towers of pancake rocks, where a small shrine lead us to a hole in the rocks and Bob used her miniature wrists to fish out a spoon used to retrieve the water which was reportedly good for your eyesight.

With dripping eyelids, and an equivocal change in our eyesight, we drove on to see the Mongolian equivalent of the grand canyon whilst Victor prepared an excellent lunch of vegetable fried rice. Whilst we tucked into our steaming bowls of lunch we noticed that we were missing Emilie who it turned out, after half an hour of heart racing searching had got lost when wandering, and was only able to retrace her steps after hearing us calling. Thankful that she had not been crushed by a rockfall or kidnapped by bandits we drove on and stopped again at the ruins of a very atmospheric monastery. After a short walk we were back in the warm and Eggy gunned the truck up a narrow and steep mountain pass, opening onto yet more stark rock formations.

We soon found our nomad camp for the night, nestled behind some rock stacks and protected by the worst guard dog in history who barely noticed our approach. Victor and Eggy went into the main ger and released the 5 year old girl who was quite literally tethered inside (true story), awaiting her parents return. She pranced around very proudly showing us her toys and preparing a tea party (with Emilie's coke) in the ger where we had lodged our stuff.

Before long the sound of bleating, followed by motorbike engines announced the return of the family and soon smoke was drifting from their stove pipe. The air temperature was dropping and there was snow in the air but we took a short walk to explore to local Dartmooresque environment. We were swiftly beaten back and took advice from the goats, sheltering in our ger as they huddled between the rock pillars. I set about lighting the stove and soon we were playing cards as the dehydrated, organically processed meadow grass briquettes took light and the temperature of the ger began to rise.

We played cards for hours, learning firstly some French games from Emilie before being joined by a very excitable Eggy and despite a significant language barrier learned a series of Mongolian card games. I have never seen so many confused faces have eureka moments as Eggy acted out the rules behind what I can only compare to circular Mongolian wist and the suits became splades, coeurs, crystal and clubs. Soon we were all engrossed and almost as excited as Eggy, who could read how the game would play out several moves ahead.

As things were going well I thought I'd try to explain a wist drive and after only 1 open hand Bob and her Mongol partner had whooped Emilie and myself. We played constantly with only short intermittent breaks for fire stoking, supper and tea, with Eggy's face beaming as he giggled, gesticulated and bounced up and down with excitement as the hand after hand was dealt in the cosy ger.

Eventually, and much to Eggy's disappointment we called it a night. After a distinctly chilly trip to the 3 sided, roofless longdrop over 100m away and having restocked our 'log basket' from the muck heap we settled down to sleep. Bob was fortunate enough to have a bed, though sadly the stack of rugs masquerading as a mattress gave a 'firm' nights sleep where each slat was very much felt. I curled up on the floor like a faithful hound, but without any coal it was going to be a chilly night.