News from HQ

Dear All, We apologise for the lack of updates since Saturday but we have been experiencing technical difficulties with the website which were completely beyond our control. These are hopefully all sorted now and you will be reading this with no problems. The worst thing is that since the website crashed so much has happened on the ice. The offload is over and the Ice Team are now alone. I w…

We were very saddened to hear the news of the three Canadians whose plane went missing and has now been discovered on the side of Mt Elizabeth, Antarctica. The reports have not confirmed their deaths, but given the nature and position of the crash they have been presumed dead. This is a tragedy which will rock the communities not just in their homeland of Canada, but across the Antarctic…

Sir Ranulph Fiennes and the entire Coldest Journey team would like to extend a heart-felt congratulations to the wonderful Joanna Lumley who was given a special recognition gong at last night’s National Television Awards. The much-loved actress is a proud trustee of The Coldest Journey and a keen supporter of Seeing is Believing.

It is inevitable that the focus of attention is on the six-man Ice Group, especially as we near the coast of Antarctica and approach the daunting task ahead. They are the obvious heroes of our story and they have the toughest role to play. If they succeed, it is very likely that books will be written and films made about them. Indeed, a documentary is being filmed as I write, and Ran is preparing…

I feel greatly relieved now that the expedition has set out for Antarctica. Since Mike Stroud suggested the idea to me five years ago, I have been working on it full-time and, like all the volunteers I have recruited onto the Team, unpaid. My original aim, and Mike’s, was simply to cross the Antarctic Continent on skis during the polar winter and using food/fuel depots parachuted the previous…

Coldest Journey team today confirmed that Sir Ranulph and his team of intrepid explorers will be joined by a seventh member. Known affectionately as Mary Mouse, the 15cm tall rodent is already a step ahead of the team having travelled down to Cape Town on board expedition ship, SA Agulhas. Surviving restless seas, tropical thunderstorms and pirate lockdown, Mary arrived in South Africa on Friday,…

“As a trustee for The Coldest Journey I have been looking forward to this day for weeks. To think that the team are now well and truly on their way to attempting this extraordinary challenge is terrifically ex…citing. I can only imagine how Sir Ranulph Fiennes and the rest of the Ice Team must be feeling right now. I think for most people the idea of what lies ahead would be simply petrifying…

Check out this blog for more pics throughout the day and also a world exclusive on a new arrival to the Ic…

Hugh Bowring blog: 5.45pm. Sitting on the sofa at home in Sussex, feeling so far removed from all the action over there in Cape Town. Despite regular contact with the guys on the ship, being part of the operations team in England can feel poles apart from the rest of the crew at times. Am I sad? Lonely? Bored? No, not really. Jealous? Now that’s probably getting closer to the mark. Helping t…

A big thank you to the management and staff at The Barn Hotel in Ruislip for their generous hospitality the psst two nights. We’re coming to the end of our two-day film and edit training at Panasonic’s offices at Pinewood Studios. The three… Ice Team members are a little over-whelmed at the prospect of having to do so much documentary filming work (on top of their education, science and sponsor…