The fire lasted well and I threw the last of the coal on when I'd finished recording the day's events around 1am. Amazingly both Bob and I managed to balance on the narrow single bed without falling out, physically or verbally and the stove kept the cold of the blizzard out all night. With the roof portal keeping the morning sunshine out none of us woke until the world's toughest Granny tore the door open around 8am, despite us tying it shut on the inside. She swiftly relit the stove and disappeared silently back out into the snow.

Within 10 minutes we had been forced out of our sleeping bags by the furnace at the centre of the ger and opened the door onto a serene snowscape, and a fair sized snow drift piled against the door. The huge Rottie style bear of a dog, who was permitted the use of all 4 limbs this morning, took our emergence as his key to try and get into the warm and Simeon had to battle hard to get the door shut again.

Without a designated toilet there were already several trails of footprints heading into the distance to make yellow snow, but shaking off the unwanted companionship of the host's pooch for your trip was tricky. The surroundings which had been so arid the day before were now blanketed in 3 inches of crisp white snow and with the wind having disappeared and a nearly clear sky it was unspeakably beautiful but equally bleak.

We tucked into our bread, jam, Nutella, cakes, tea and coffee and loaded up Olive as Eggy lovingly tried to clear most of the snow off her. With firm handshakes and wry smiles from Mongolia's gnarliest grandparents we lurched through the first snow drift and roared into the bright white wilderness beyond.

With only the faintest hint of yesterday's track visible the progress was mercifully slow, and even ground to a wheel-spinning stop as we lost traction climbing over a steep and winding bank. After much bouncing, rocking and roaring of the engine Eggy worked up enough momentum to carry the cumbersome bulk of Olive out of our rapidly deepening snow-hole and over the ridge.

After delivering a message to another local family from our previous hosts, we pushed on through the snow which was now showing black peaks here and there, and was distinctly patchy by the time we reached the asphalt. We pulled into a minimalist fuel station and basked in sun, watching the snow melt pour from Olive's underside. After a slightly protracted wait while Eggy used the facilities, scaring off a local lady in the process, we were back on the road and comfortably cruising, dodging the occasional snow drift.

Ominously we passed a land cruiser which had evidently rolled off the asphalt in the bad weather and was now surrounded by Mongolians, assessing the rather significant damage. With the sky darkening again we pulled over for lunch. The wind bit as Victor cooked his amazing vegetable spaghetti out of the back of the van, the wind whipping his poncho whilst we showed Eggy the mornings go pro footage in exchange for him getting out his huge rifle cartridges which must have been .303. As we reloaded the van the wrecked land cruiser was towed unceremoniously along the road behind us. On 3 wheels it sparked and jolted along as the third snowstorm hit and Victor turned white as he dished up.

With Eggy pumping the wind scrapers we crawled through the icy blizzard and Bob gave Victor her kindle to catch up on some highbrow English literature... Before long we had pulled into Dalanzadgad, the capital of South Gobi, and headed straight to the public showers, in which for 75p we rinsed the stench of sweat, mutton, poo-fired fire from our grimy bodies and revelled in the luxury of fresh clothes.

Rejuvenated, we headed on and were soon winding our way towards the hugely impressive Altai mountains, covered in snow and very imposing. We dived off the road and crawled through the foothills of the mountains as a final snowy squall hit. We picked up a Mongol lady, wandering in the wasteland and she turned out to be our host and she directed us to her tidy get camp at the entrance to Yolyn Am national park.

We settled in to our luxury ger, which had individual raised beds AND mattresses surrounding the stove, and I darned a hold on my down jacket before we were presented with supper a la Victor. After a brief foray to the top of the hill to see the sun set, and having purchased some local handmade goods we returned to find Eggy solo karaokeing to Mongolian pop songs, which had very entertaining videos indeed.

We got a good heat running out of the stove and played cards endlessly until the wheels finally came off trying to explain how to predict the fall of the cards in a new, French, wist-style game. We collapsed onto our fantastically luxurious beds and soaked up the warmth of the stove.