I know you had a heads up while I was away but I just wanted to confirm that we successfully reached the Magnetic North Pole and played our seven-a-side rugby match the following day, hopefully setting a Guinness World Record in the process and raising up to £300,000 for Wooden Spoon, the children’s charity of rugby.
We were blessed with good weather for a number of the trek
days but is wasn’t all fun and banter. Winds rose significantly during the trek
plunging temperatures as low as -30C, making it very hard to pull a 60kg sledge
uphill all day over a peninsula on the penultimate day.
Most nights we
collapsed into our tents shattered and hoped we would be responsive enough
should a local polar bear decide to come and pay us a visit during the night! 
There were some cracking days of weather too and our guides said they haven’t
seen so many windless, sunny days at that time of year before. Thankfully one
of those days was match day and our supporter plane had no problems landing
with the equipment, match referee and additional players to make up our numbers
for the game.
Team Tim came out eventual winners, defeating Team Ollie 17-14, in what was a hard fought match. Being on the winning side in a record breaking rugby match is a great feeling but I hasten to add that we went as a squad and the result was not the focal point, our achievement in getting there in the first place was and I thank everyone who helped make that possible. The such a great bunch of guys on the expedition and we'll be rembered as one in what we acheived.
I had plenty of time to reflect on our success as I was one of
5 remaining challengers stranded at the North Pole for almost 3 days as weather
halted any air support to come in and pick us up with our remaining guides. Sitting huddled in a tent for
so long with Arctic winds howling outside lends itself to some interesting
variations on parlour games being played. Stories for the pub perhaps!
Thank you for all your support and for anyone still wishing
to donate to the children’s charity you can do so securely online via www.justgiving.com/arctic-rugby-2015 .
Media interest has rocketed, having appeared on ITV News,
SkySports1 and in various papers over the last few days, including today's Metro. Sky Sports’ World
Rugby has been filming our progress and Monday sees us appearing live on
BT Sports Rugby Tonight (8pm)
For your
interest and for those asking, Laura says the beard goes tomorrow and who am I to agrue! What fantastic support she has given me these last 18 months and Isobel, Amelia and Harry were also with me in spirit over the three weeks. Cloudy eye moments on being reunited at Heathrow!
Tune in to BBC South East on Thursday around 6.30pm for my Arctic Rugby appearance!
Best wishes
