What Are We Letting Ourselves In For ?? The "Challenge" Team Finally Finds Out !

Instead of the usual routine of walking to start the weekend it was a trip to the Victoria & Albert Hotel in Manchester for a meet and greet session together with a presentation from Global Adventure on the Challenge in April.

Everyone arrived before the due time so it meant we got to "break the ice" over a cup of coffee and a bit of a chat with each other beforehand. There were 8 of us altogether, another person from the hospital couldn't make it as she was on call and we were told there would be a few others who would be joining us as "independents" so although we don't know exactly how many of us there are it seems like we will be a fairly small group.

We were introduced to Brian Jackson, our Expedition Leader and as not one us has done anything remotely like this before we were extremely eager to hear his words of wisdom ! Brian gave us a quick Bio and run through all the fantastic challenges he's been involved with, pretty much in nearly every part of the globe so we feel we're in very safe hands.

We were also introduced to the two "Mikes" who are Mushers (sounds like the start of a limerick) to give us a talk on the dogs. They live here in the UK and have their own huskies which they race. From their talk it is so apparent they absolutely love what they do and live, sleep, breathe huskies, their enthusiasm is truly infectious.

I'd asked the guy from the hotel to take this photo for me of everyone together, unfortunately I think there was a bit of camera shake as the first one was totally blurred and this one's a bit indistinct. The pic shows Brian Jackson, Exped Leader on the left (white shirt), Mike the Musher next to him in the Grey top with Mike the other Musher stood the right of him (black cap), and far right is Dawn the organiser from the Hospital's Appeal team and the five of us left are those participating in the Challenge.

The two Mikes have done the same trip that we'll be doing. They talked through the itinerary day by day to give us an idea what we will be doing. There was lots of practical advice ranging from how to treat the dogs, camping out in super cold conditions , vital clothing/equipment etc. We all seemed to have the same concerns so of course there were lots of questions constantly flying about and when it was time for lunch we begrudgingly left our seats only to resume our barrage of questions in between mouthfuls!!

A slide in the presentation shown what a typical home away would look like

Our 'mushers' were full of anecdotal info which was enough to raise our eyebrows on more than one occasion - particulary when it came to the delicate subject of the "loo" (or lack of in this case). Of course we knew when we signed up for this event that it was something we would have to 'get over' but when you're talking about temperatures possibly dipping to -34 due to the wind chill factor being thrown into the equation the thought of bearing your all suddenly seems like the biggest challenge of all !!!