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We've just set up camp in what has to be one of the most beautiful campsites we've had yet. Just 20m away is a medium sized lake, frozen over except for its vibrant blue perimeter - a few meters of crystal clear water ringing the lake, from which Clark just went and scooped up enough water for dinner and breakfast, and the terrain is firm pebbly tundra that could almost be a farmers well kept meadow, into which the bear alarm tent pegs slid with ease. It looks, as Clark pointed out, exactly like that default Windows XP desktop background of rolling hills against a summery blue sky. Despite only getting about 2.5 km today, we were only hauling for about three hours after sorting ourselves out back at Ground Zero after yesterdays calamity. The sun is out, things are drying, the mud caked all over us, our clothes and our PAC is starting to desiccate and break off as a powder, we are having our favorite Backcountry Cuisine Mexican Chicken dehydrated tonight, and very best of all, we still have our cart, which still has four wheels, room for the tent on top, and just made it up some killer hills - we are now well and truly into the mountains up onto the plateau. We are in top spirits, and riding the high that comes from apparently having just foiled yet another of Victoria Islands attempts to ruin our plans. Vic Is isn't going down without a fight it seems, but then again, neither are we. It's got personal now - we ARE getting to that far side. Watch us. =P
So a brief explanation of our latest renovation of The Nugget / PAC2 / our Cart. As you know, yesterday while rolling down a hill, the ever increasingly lopsided / bulging tires caused the cart to wobble and wonk and bounce and flex so much that eventually, one of our wheels basically ripped itself off the axle. On closer inspection, both ends of the 'rear' carts axle was buckled, right where the axle stubs slide inside. One end was a hopeless tangle of torn bent aluminium, the other end merely kicked up at perhaps a 15 degree angle. What we decided to do was to cut off the mangled end, and slide the wheel's stub back into the now shortened axle. The problem was that our cart is essentially two parallel load arms, a set distance apart, between which we sling our bag netting, and on top of which neatly fits our carbon fiber hard top panels. These load arms have to be parallel as that is how the two carts join together, and the wheels are so large that we couldn't simply bring the load arms in to fit the new short axle width at the rear, without the front of the rear wheels rubbing on the load arms as the flared out in front. There was only one thing to do: make the entire cart (both of them), narrower. So we got out our snapped-off length of hacksaw blade, and took it in turns to subject ourselves to the hand-cramping torture of cutting about 75cm of aluminum with about 20mm of hacksaw blade (any longer and our wonderfully brittle blades snap off, even when reversed to cut on the back stroke). So we cut the mangled end off the first axle, and then cut the same amount off the good axle, (discovering in the process that it too was starting to buckle at the same point on one side, so we amputated just in time it seems). Then, PAC also has two 'end spacers' (100x50mm angle) holding the load arms apart in the middle. So Clark then merrily cut these in half over the course of perhaps, 2 grueling hours and then we overlapped them by a few inches and pop-riveted them together again, then I turned my weapon of choice - our Leatherman Charge Multitool - to our carbon fiber hard tops, now too wide to fit between the wheels. with the little leatherman saw I hacked out sections on each side for the wheels (Sorry EMP Composites, the hard tops used to look so nice...). We managed to leave the middle few panels original width as they are in-between the front and rear wheels, which was great, as then at least we haven't narrowed ALL of our already narrow not-two-person-tent floor space. Of course we had to unload absolutely everything out of the carts, and even untie the netting, right back to square one, in the mud. It was a nightmare, and an extreme test of patience, restraint, and self control. Thankfully the weather was kind, but as hacksaw blades snapped even shorter, the tally of cuts and slices on our hands multiplied, and blood mixed with the sweat and mud covering everything, the tears, were, we both admitted, were at times only held back by a bitter determination and a positive attitude that we have become well practiced at maintaining and reflecting off each other. It was just over 10 hours of non-stop emergency repair work, just to get it back together in a form we could pitch the tent back on top so we could get some sleep, after midnight, and pause to eat some food.
We awoke this morning to more rain, and spent until 3:00 finishing off the repairs, re-stringing the netting, and re-loading everything. Remembering both ends of the 'bad' axle were bent, we only dared shorten the axle on one side, so our rear right wheel is still off at a 15 deg angle, but seems to be OK - we loaded more of the weight into the front cart to help ease it's burden. Also, where we placed the load arms over the axle this time is closer to the wheel stub axles, where the inserted ends of the stub axles will help strengthen the axle in that section. So all in all, we now have a stronger, narrower Nugget, ignoring the wonky back wheel. We put all the off-cuts into a bag, picked up all the little shards of carbon fiber (well, those that haven't embedded themselves into our skin, itching like fire), and set off, drenched, towards the first of the big hills, leaving behind a sloshy mud pit.
So, it worked. We got up a few extra hills, the new Nugget did the trick, and the sun came out. Oh yeah! Onwards and upwards!
Oh - and thanks to my dad Andrew for pointing this out, we have just crossed the half way mark - half way across Victoria Island! (if you count the 2005 section) and, we have done one third of this 2008 trip!
P.S. - Spotted our first little mozzie wriggler in a puddle of water today. I guess the infamous mosquito swarm time-bomb has started ticking. Oh oh! =P
  
Our live expedition updates are written on our tiny ASUS Eee PC 900 laptops, and sent via Iridium 9505A satellite phones from Landwide Satellite Solutions, using email compression software xGate from Global mareine Networks! Thanks guys - it's the perfect set up!
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