-30C in Norway

I had a fantastic week in Norway from 18th to 27th of January.

Flew out to Oslo on the Friday morning for a press conference and launch of the Race Sponsor, Amundsen Omega 3.

They are supplying sponsorship and as much fish oil as we can eat between now and the race. It's supposed to be good for you.

I'm not a taker of supplements but I'm gonna give this a go. If it helps keep me well as the training increases, then I'm all for it.

If it gives me a face like a tuna fish and a desire to consume algae, not so good.

The press conference was held in the Fram museum, and it took me a while to realise the significance of this place. It contains the Fram ship, used by Amundsen and loads of artefacts from his race and also stuff related to Nansen.

I was completely blown away by it, and, perhaps because of no sleep for 48 hours, a bit emotional.

Then off to Dombas, north of Oslo, hill country, where we were going to be training. Stopped on the way at the Fedor Hotel. Blown away again, because this was completely unexpected.

The owner had heard about the race and insisted we stop off for some dog sleding, fantastic, beautiful animals, dinner and a talk about the hotels history.

Scott based himself there to trial his motorised sledge, nearly 100 years ago, apparently it worked brilliantly for about 15 minutes, and pulled several dozen villagers up the hill, until an axle broke.

It was quite something to look at the stunning views around the Hotel and realise they were the same views as Scott had looked over. He said he loved the place and had wanted to return but died before that could happen.

Then onto training. Based in Dombas military camp we had two days of lectures and kit sorting.

I spent the first night sleeping out to test the kit.

Temp recorded as -30C but I think it was more like -20C. Bit chilly, even in a -20 sleeping bag.
Spent the next four days practicing crevasses rescue (I do not want to fall down a crevasse, I don't care how pretty the colours in the ice are) and skiing, using GPS, night skiing, pulling sleds, camping and eating my own body weight in chocolate and cheese.

The Norwegian teams, one all boy and one all girl team, were very good on skis.

They'll take some keeping up with! We had a mixture of calm weather, strong winds and white out conditions, all good interms of training. All the Norwegians we met were lovely, friendly, hospitable people.

I now have a team. An all girl Brit team including Irish dynamo Hanna Shields who among other things summited Everest last year, and Felicity Aston English Dynamo who organised a race across Greenland on skis to kite back, 1200 kilometers or something like that, and as we speak is off to ski across a Siberian Lake, 700 kilometers.

It's great to Team up with these two awesome birds.

The talk on the North Pole race a few weeks ago raised £250 for the Amber Trust, so thank you to all who came along.

Now, where did I put those tyres.