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As I type this, I'm listening to my iPod, sitting on the front of the PAC, legs swinging idly, wearing nothing but Icebreaker leggings and a warm dry pair of socks, feeling the glorious warmth of the sun soak into my rather pale skin. At the other end of the cart, Clark has the vestibule folded right back, transforming the pokey little kitchen into a platform commanding a splendid view out across, and down over the Arctic tundra expanding outwards towards the apparently limitless blue horizon. The looking 'down' part is significant - we are at the TOP of the plateau, from here, we're only about 1km from the little stream (which is downhill from us), that flows downhill (surprise) into a lake that flows into a river that flows into more lakes which flows in turn, into The Kuujjua, which flows downhill for over 100km the way we want to go! Against, apparently, all odds, it seems we have made it up onto the plateau. Our spirits could not be higher. The ground around here is firm, and we even set the bear alarm up in bare feet, the sensation of texture beneath our feet (well, the parts of our feet that aren't numb from being squished in boots for the last month), is wonderfully welcome. The sun is toasty, the air is still, and the almost complete lack of clouds looks so promising that we have splayed out half our clothes around on the ground (tied down), along with our Gore-Tex Hiking boots, pants etc, all drying merrily. Such a perfect evening, it's heaven.
The day didn't start out so well though, not by a long shot. After spending over an hour re-rimming our wheel rims with new strips of our foil dehydrated food packets to prevent the inner tube chafing (some of the old strips were starting to look a little worse for wear after doing a masterful job for weeks). We finally had our first nut break without having even moved at all, and then set off, and although full of energy in the hope, expectation even, of reaching the first Kuujjua stream by days end, we headed off slowly, our feet alarmingly painful. Clark's especially so, and after he'd downed some painkillers we hobbled onwards, limping and grimacing. Within about an hour, our hopes for a productive day came crashing down around us as we wound around a particularly hilly section of the esker, and suddenly found ourselves in a rather nasty region of mud. "This is horrible! Shall we get a few pics and video?" Clark's voice snapped me out of my hypnotised hauling. We stopped for a few pics and a bit of filming, and then tried to continue on - dryer ground seemed to be only just 50m or so ahead, calling to us. Our feet swam in the mud slurry, each useless sliding footstep liquefying the quicksand further and deeper until it was revealed that about 30 or 40cm beneath the mud was a slipery, smooth layer of what felt like ice. Absolutely no traction. It was by far, the worst mud we have encountered yet, including the horrors in 2005 with PAC1. We tried everything to reach the drier terrain ahead, both hauling, one pushing one hauling, both pushing, but it was futile, exhausting, and back breaking work. The meter or so we did manage to move it, often one or two of our huge tires simply slid through the mud without turning, smearing themselves into deep furrows and promptly getting bogged. The next nut-break time came and went, and so did lunch, but we paused for neither. At last, beaten, we unloaded the PAC, carrying one bag at a time across the mud to the 'safe zone' and sloshing back for the next one, each step our booths being sucked down into the mud so thick and sucking that withdrawing each footstep caused our boots to rub viciously into our inflamed heals and Clark‘s injured foot. It was such a bummer. Even unloaded, it took an almighty effort to drag the PAC out and across the mud, where, having gone virtually nowhere in the last two hours, we collapsed and ate nut break and lunch in one go, our mind then wandering to dinner, only 4 hours away. "How far do you recon we've got?" I challenged Clark, dejectedly. "Hmmm.. 2km?" We both snorted in a "hah, yeah, probably" kinda way, and glanced over at the PAC-o-meter. It read 1.58 km. A mosquito - the first we've seen - hovered in front of my face, threatening to add injury to insult.
Somehow though, the rest of the day wasn't so bad. We crossed the last two streams in our way without even flooding our boots, and even negotiated a few boulder fields with only the odd spine-chilling, grating, ground-clearance reminder. The PAC wheel covers hated life, after having each rip wedged full of mud, the boulders then snatched and tore at them further - we will need to spend some more time tomorrow morning tending to a few new wounds.
To our great delight though, here we are, having miraculously scraped a total of 5.94 km, salvaging what started out to be a rather depressing day.
Dinner just now was to die for, and we ate it actually standing outside enjoying the view, the weather, and the satisfaction of standing on top of the plateau, at long last.
  
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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