Up early again this morning despite having not gone to bed until 12.30 am. Due to the distance of the sleds from our tent and the depth of the snow it takes ages going backwards and forwards with all of our gear. Another beautiful morning, thank goodness.

Karen and Sue putting the world to rights

Anne looking very stylish

Tove & Tore

Tove and Tore fixing a sled - a common occurrence over the trip, quite a few had bits of twine holding things together !!!

Although we have a very short distance to go to this morning feel quite nervous as usual about setting off and a little low that this would be the last time. We arrived at the Ice hotel about 9.30 am where the transport vehicles were waiting to collect the dogs. As each sled pulled up Tore shook everyone's hand, gave them a hug and said well done. It felt strange as we' d only just left camp and I felt as though we were just getting going. We did some final posing for pictures before reluctantly saying cheerio to our dogs and headed over to pay the Ice hotel a visit.

End of the road - Kiruna, Sweden

Tom, Andy at the back, Sue & Dave

A final pat for my furry friends

Front doors of the Icehotel

Getting our glasses filled

Brian and myself - you can't go to the Ice Hotel without having a drink in an ice glass!!

We spent about an hour in the hotel. It was good to see although if I'm honest was not as good as I expected, perhaps that's because they are getting ready to close the season as its starting to melt. The Absolut bar was shut so we had our drinks in our ice glasses in the Reception area. After checking out quite a few rooms it was time to go back to the vehicles ready for our 6 hour drive back to Tromso.

We stopped on route at a huge Wallmart type supermarket to get goodies for eating on the journey. It was a first for me walking round a supermarket absolutely stinking of dogs, no make up, hair greasy as a spoon and cracking great blisters erupting everywhere on my lips. (One of the days where we had blizzards I'd pulled down my balaclava to shout instructions to my dogs but couldn't get it back up again because of my mittens. I'd been too scared to try taking them off as it would require using both hands and leaning on the sled which is ok in normal conditions but the weather had been far too crazy and required total concentration. I must have gone a good hour or two without any protection so I knew they'd got a good case of wind burn).

The journey passed quite quickly, a few chatted quietly and some caught up on their sleep. I sat with Anne and no doubt did more talking in that journey than all week. We arrived at the hotel much earlier than expected. Our rooms were gorgeous with huge comfy beds and pristine white sheets, piping hot shower - bliss. We had some time to ourselves, Karen went off for a sauna, I stayed in the room and sorted through all my stuff, repacking it so I wouldn't have to do it tomorrow. My hands felt very swollen and throbbed whilst my mouth was tingling like crazy with the cold sores. After showers we changed to our "normal" clothes although our muscles were so "pumped up" we thought we weren't going to get into them. We met up with the gang at the Flyt sports bar for a celebratory drink and meal. Tove and Tore handed out award certificates and a medal from "Global Adventures". Brian gave out little postcards of huskies with a different message on for each member of the group - mine was for the most supportive member. We all had to take it in turn to get up and recount both our most challenging and rewarding moments. The week had been pretty intense so being put on the spot it was hard for everyone quickly to separate events and make a decsion but one or two things seemed to stand out in everyone's mind as experiences they will never forget.

Unwinding in the Flyt Sports bar, Tromso

Tove & Brian handing out Medal & Certificate, Dave looking very seriously studying his.