I woke again with first light, and dragged my chilled, sleeping bag clad body to the stove, cursing myself for not leaving any starting material handy by for this moment. Having picked the longer bits of grass and wood off the dehydrated cuddles I set a match to a small starting teepee and coaxed a couple of the driest cuddles into life, soon sitting back to admire the roaring inferno which was starting to work against the chill. I looked around for a round of applause, receiving only a round of snores, subdued by layers sleeping bags, blankets and hats. After a very quick reconnaissance trip to the gents, walking against the strengthening wind I returned to my sleeping bag and fell asleep in the warm glow of the stove listening to the chimney rattling against the rafters.

The next thing I knew was being shaken awake by Bob, and I noted that the chill in the air was matched by a lack of glow from the stove. After it was coaxed back into life we packed up, and having tucked into a breakfast of tea and pastries we ventured into the gathering storm to load our bags into Olive.

As we set off, Victor confirmed that there was a large storm coming in and today was going to be spent driving 260km South, right into its path. A wall of snow chased us as we bounced and boogied across the plains heading for the refuge which was offered to us by Eggy's uncle. The dogs chased the van into the camp and we dashed inside the ger as the blizzard set in.

In the warmth of the ger we made small talk Mongolian style, drank goat milk tea and were asked to give our professional opinion on one of their goat kids with pneumonia. Following a limited examination we concluded that it looked significantly better than some of the specimens we had seen in the desert and despite our protestations it received a quadruple dose of long acting penicillin from a bottle of norocillin la which looked surprisingly in date! It was unfortunate that only a 20ml syringe was available but we were just pleased the 3rd generation cephalosporin which they produced from a battered tin remained unopened...

We headed on into the capital of the mid-gobi, Mandalgov, dodging the pack of dogs which raced to chase the approaching van. We stocked up with beer for Victor's birthday before heading into the canteen for lunch whilst Eggy sought spares for the truck.

The mutton pasta was hot and filling as we watched the snow swirling outside the windows. The presence of an indoor toilet was a decadent luxury and Bob passed the time by showing Victor our holiday snaps of where we had travelled but what intrigued him most were the photos of Family life back in England and the 'nice horses' at NEH.

Before long we were back on the road, and it was an actual road, with Eggy pumping the manually driven windscreen wipers to clear the screen from the large, dusty snow flakes which landed there and were turning the surrounding wilderness white. We cruised comfortably on the tarmac for 50km and Simeon attempted to teach Bob how to solve a rubics cube before resorting to reading the dictionary.

In the middle of a long straight section of highway resembling Route 66 we seemingly blindly turned off into the desert, which had now sprouted sand dunes and the local wildlife included the occasional shaggy Bactrian camel looking very at home with the wind whipping their long dense coats.

After another 20km it was fairly obvious that the guys were uncertain of our exact position and heading. This was barely surprising because visibility had dropped to about 20 metres and swirling storms of sand kept covering the hint of a track that we were trying to follow. We pushed on and eventually visibility increased to give us a view of the layered cliffs which rose 20m out of the desert. Eggy dropped us off at the bottom and the howling wind pushed us up a channel between the cliffs. We summited with a great view of the layered formations, but it would have been stunning if the visibility had been better and the wind hadn't been driving sand into our eyes so we swiftly retreated to the shelter of the van.

We continued on and during the final 50km the weather continued to deteriorate, meaning we arrived in the ger camp in the middle of a sandstorm. It felt that we had arrived on the set of starwars at Tatoeen, and I almost expected C3PO to appear from the wind whipped ger. We bundled into the main shelter and were offered sheep's milk tea and biscuits as the families mother fussed over the stove and her young girl ran around showing us her favourite toys. Again we were only made to feel a slight nuisance before retreating through the howling winds to our ger which was rapidly filling up with sand as it had a 2ft semicircular hole in the ceiling.

We sat around, buffeted by the noisy chill and began to play cards before an apparition broke through the door and started attacking the fire. It was the grandmother, shrouded in her long Mongolian coat, head scarf, flowery face mask and welders goggles. She appeared unstoppable and as soon as she had scared the fire into throwing out some heat she disappeared silently into the sandstorm.

We played cards as the wind howled and after a few hands we were all covered in a thick layer of sand. Fortunately it wasn't long before we were called for supper with the family. We perched on the western bed and tucked into our mutton (with rice and sand for a bit of variety) under a slight atmosphere, before grandad arrived sporting traditional livery, a pirate bandana and ski goggles. He cursed and stomped around, occasionally glaring at us as he removed his outer shell revealing a solid sinewy frame and impressive mutton chops. He sat in the corner inhaling his food, glowering at us over the steaming bowl of rice.

We focused on drinking our tea, which had been boiled in the supper pan and was drunk out of our unwashed supper bowls, the end result being a fusion of Darjeeling with a distinct hint of rancid mutton. Conversation was limited but Victor said that the old man was always like this and the simmering wolverine opposite 'didn't really mean it'.

Eggy broke the silence by going through his photo album with us, and we were soon well acquainted with his family, the foxes which he had shot and many car selfies. We brought in a few bottles of beer to try and lift the mood, and because it was Victors birthday. There was a very set order and technique to offering the drinks, especially as we only had 2 tea cups to drink out of. This soon became irrelevant because whilst Bob was showing Eggy some photos of us shooting and other English highlights, Simeon challenged Grumps to an arm wrestle. It was a tense moment but instantly the old man's weather hardened face lit up and soon the beer was flowing and everyone was involved in parlour games, card tricks and there was laughing and joking across the generations. Even granny, who had hung up her welding goggles for the night learned the 'fork trick' and responded with showing us a complicated finger dance which caused her to wrinkled leathery face to beam as her 4 year old granddaughter tried to follow suit. The wind built and anybody who went outside came back covered in thick snowflakes but we were very happily engaged in a truly Mongolian experience.

Eventually we called it a night and headed back through the pitch black blizzard to our ger, where Grandad wolverine had sealed the roof and lit a roaring fire. He sat back on one of the beds to give us a few pieces of friendly Mongolian advice and smoked a cigarette before disappearing into the roaring snowstorm which had already dumped an inch of snow on the ground. We gave Victor his birthday present, a kinder surprise, with which he was delighted, and Bob and I assessed our sleeping arrangements. We ended up doing a sleeping balancing act on a single bed as there was not enough floor space for the fourth member of our team to sleep on the floor due to a large milk churn of water dangling from the ceiling to prevent the ger from blowing away. We fell asleep to the sound of melting snow dripping onto the sizzling hot plate of the stove, and the wind driving the heavy snow against the felt walls of our little ger.