Having topped up the fire before falling asleep it lasted well and my early morning stoking not only rejuvenated the glowing embers but also filled the ger with smoke, highlighting the bright rays of sunshine cutting across the room from the gap above the door. A crèche of goat kids bounced around the camp in the bright morning sunlight and, as the smoke cleared from the ger, the others stirred and as soon as we had eaten we were careering along a narrow, snowy...

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 sw...

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 ap...

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 ...

We rose early, finished packing and trekked to the Golden Gobi Hostel where the entrance hall was piled high with provisions. There was no refusing the second breakfast of carrot laced fried eggs from Olgie's mum before being introduced to Victor, our softly spoken guide, and Eggy, our round faced, jolly driver. We headed back out into the biting chill and there, in gleaming nato green, perched on huge knobbly tyres was an ancient, but much loved, Russian militar...