A Note from Ryan and 38 Miles to go!

I was thrilled when I got an email last night that was entitled…”Message from Ryan”. I have been waiting for one of these since her first started. I got my very own private message from Ryan which made me miss him even more, but I also got another one which is to you, his readers, friends, family and support! I thought I would share his letter so you could see not only how good Ryan’s penmanship is (despite his freezing hands) but also to know that he is alright and thinking of you!

Over the next 2 days the two teams have to cover 38 Miles to make it to the official magnetic north pole. This can be done, they have already covered over 290 miles, so this is nothing by comparison. A walk in the very very cold park!

I know by now, the teams and Ryan especially, are just eager to get to the end, to come home and warm up. It has been a very long and cold month. But I think more than anything everyone is excited to share their, stories and their pictures. I know that I can’t wait to see what Ryan has experiences over the last four weeks!

The last leg was very long, with a few rocky bumps along the way and another wind storm, but nothing like the one on leg # 2. They hit a patchy area where communications were lost, but leave it to Ryan to make sure that all got sorted out. He was resourceful and found a way to make sure his phone call went through to give their approximate coordinates along with their daily update:

“Ryan Malfara, who handles Team Internationals comms however had the “wit of mind” to use one of our other contact numbers through to our Checkpoint Team, (and got through) still sitting at the top of Bathurst Island who relayed an approx position to us, which showed them as having done 18 nautical miles and still in the tracks of Slugs. This shows that they are both making determined efforts to make the KCI Checkpoint for the final push for home.”

So they have just left Checkpoint #3. Ryan’s team came in a little later than expected…but all in good time.