With just six weeks to go before departure, final
preparations for the Land Rover and The Royal Geographical Society with
Institute of British Geographers - supported ‘Pole of Cold’ expedition are well
under way.
The 14-week 30,000 km journey will begin from the
Royal Geographical Society in London on 20 November 2013. The team will depart
the UK from Harwich, catching a ferry to Esbjerg in Denmark and then on to
Oslo, Norway. The planned route goes through Finland to St Petersburg, before
continuing east through Russia to Ekaterinburg and on to the Trans-Siberian
Highway. After skirting Lake Baikal, the Defender will be heading along the
infamous ‘Road of Bones' to Oymyakon. Conditions at Oymyakon, the Northern
hemisphere’s Pole of Cold, will be extreme, regularly hitting -20 deg C and at
times as low as -50 deg C. The region earned its title as the ‘Pole of Cold’
when -67.7 deg C was recorded in February 1933.
