I had my first nervous breakdown on around day nine I think... It was cold, it was windy, it was raining, and my feet were rotting into my trainers. We had been walking for maybe four hours, on a stage where there's no civilisation at all between the start point and the end point. We had spent an hour rolling over these gentle, bracken covered hills on top of a larger hill. Every negative walking thing was there - the false summits, where you walk to the top of the hill only to find it goes down and up again; the biting cold wind that's blowing - of course - right into your face; the stinging type of rain that's there just to piss you off; the fact that you're the highest point for miles so there's no solace from the wind....

At one point I just stopped walking. This was unheard of. It was one thing to slow down if you were tired and miserable, but another thing entirely to stop altogether.

It defied all logic. We were 150 miles into a linear path. Every footstep we took brought us closer to our goal. We were past the halfway point, and now we were on the home straight. So stopping was just stupid.

Karim had skirted around the hill ahead and hadn't noticed my lack of motion. I remember looking around the vacant landscape and being hit with such an annoying urge of helplessness - there was literally nothing for me to do but carry on. So I thought I'd sit down. Then I was trying to persuade myself to get the tent out of my bag and wrap myself up in it, maybe wait until the next day.

But it was still going to be there the next day. I would still be stuck halfway up a hill with no heels and a bloody heavy bag. I can honestly say that if I had felt like that in any more accessible place I would have hailed a taxi/ambulance/tractor and gone home. I really was that close.

Then I had (what alcoholics would refer to as -PF) a moment of clarity. I reached into the top pocket of my bag, and rummaged around my essentials - wallet, mobile, cigarettes, little penknife, torch, redundant nicotine patches, water purification tablets... and then I found it - my iPod.

I hadn't used my iPod yet because I (brilliantly) forgot to bring the charger for it. I decided it was going to have to only be used in extreme emergencies. This, I decided, qualified.

It had been nine days without music, discounting the occasional s***e they played in the background in the odd pub that played anything... It had actually got to the stage where I had forgotten about my iPod altogether.

The second I put it on I was taken back to Thailand, waiting for a bus in the sweltering heat for six hours with no water and no food. I was starting to go stir-crazy then, but a quick tune on the personal stereo, eyes closed, and I was in a different place.

I smoked a cigarette and listened to Black by Pearl Jam - in my opinion the finest song of all time. Then I got up, put on the same playlist I had used at the gym, and started walking again. I ended up jogging to catch up with Karim. My feet were fine. My spirits were fine. Everything was going to be just... fine.

Well, for the four hours of playing time before the battery died anyway....