In fact I left Longyearbyen in the high Arctic at 14:45 and have connected via Tromso in Norway, then Oslo and onto London arriving on schedule at 21:30. Unbelievably all 3 flights were nearly empty with 30 passengers on the first flight and only 20 on the second two. So by pure good fortune I have arrived back earlier than some of the team who left several days ago!

Two things strike me on returning to the UK, the first is I’ve just seen the sun set for the first time in 3 weeks so I know that will allow me to sleep very soundly. The second is on returning to my family home in Herefordshire the colours and especially green is overwhelming on my senses; I hadn’t thought about it up until now but I’ve really only been looking at white for the past 3 weeks as well.

It’s great to see the family again and catch-up on what I’ve missed and to have the chance to reflect on the trip of a lifetime and check to see where I am with the donations to my two charities, Riders for Health and BASIC. Fantastically, the £10000 mark has been passed and I thank everyone who has donated so generously. However I’m going to keeping on fundraising for these causes, so I may be back from the north pole, but I still have another goal to reach in raising funds…

Today the private plane got a flight clearance to fly from Longyearbyen to Edinburgh so 8 of the remaining pole group left this morning. After a last evening with David Hempleman Adams and Rune it will be my turn to try to leave Spitsbergan tomorrow.

Climbing over the ice rubble

Broken ice pans following the storm

Setting up camp

Team leader Rune

The ice ahead of us

Stopping for munchies

Out on the ice

The Barneo Ice Camp

Longyearbyen

Meet the team

All of my photos will be going up on my Flickr and Facebook pages but here is just another sample of the pictures from out on the ice.

Once again, I have to make a huge thank-you to everybody who has donated to my charities – your contribution is very much appreciated. If you are still considering making a donation to either Riders for Health or BASIC, there is still time. No matter how large or small, every donation is extremely welcome for these two great causes.

I have also taken the opportunity to move out of the youth hostel type of accommodation that I have been in for three days into a better hotel which best of all has a bath which I have used with great enthusiasm.  It looks like the skies will open tomorrow and therefore lots of people are preparing to leave first thing in the morning.  My flight is due to leave Wednesday lunchtime so I am planning on that basis although making contingency arrangements should I need to stop over either in Tromso, on the northern mainland, of Norway or Oslo, the capital should I not be able to go back into London.

I’ve also been receiving lots of good wishes from friends by email and text including one from Charley Boorman who is currently stranded in Jordan himself.

We’re still in Spitsbergen and over the coming days I’ll be sending photos, thoughts and videos of my journey to the Pole, hopefully reflecting the enjoyment, the camaraderie and also the difficulties that the team and I faced during our adventure.

In the meantime, here is a sample of some of my photographs from the North Pole.

On the ice outside the tent called "The Pleasuredome"

A typical view of the frozen Arctic Ocean ice that we were on

David Newman and David Hempleman Adams in Spitsbergen

I’d also like to say a huge thank-you to NewLaw solicitors who have made a £500 donation to one of my charities, BASIC. Your contribution is very much appreciated.

If you would like to make a donation, you can do at my JustGiving pages for Riders for Health and BASIC.

We also then travelled out to a ship that had become frozen in the sea ice and had lunch with some Norwegians on board which was a very memorable experience.

During this trip we came across lots of fresh polar bear tracks.  They have started their migration now out towards the coast, given it is spring, although we didn’t actually see any in the flesh.

The fly in group, who had travelled to Spitsbergen in their own private jet, are effectively grounded as there are no safe air corridors for them to fly back to the UK but I think deep down they are enjoying being somewhere as beautiful as here.  On a personal level it has been really interesting to spend time with them as the group includes three very distinguished CEOs from large public companies, so I have been please to hear about their experiences in business and how that might be applied at Carole Nash

I have now had 3 showers within 24 hours and starting to feel clean and I am eating real food, rather than rehydrated food again.  Also after no alcohol for well over a month I have had a couple of beers last night with fellow team members and also new friends from the Pole fly in group.

We have also learnt that with the volcanic eruption in Iceland there is the potential for some severe delays across Europe and although the ash cloud has not yet reached Spitsbergen it is affecting mainland Norway which is the staging post back to the UK from here.

In addition to writing up my diary, cleaning and sorting out the expedition equipment we get a chance to have some fun and as a group go out with some huskies dog sledging across the frozen ocean and into a glacial valley just outside Longyearbyen.

There is some sense of disappointment in my last podcast that we didn’t reach the pole the way that we had intended, having to take a helicopter for the last 20 miles.

We began the expedition with a tight schedule, only to be met with unprecedented bad weather for April. This time of year is usually the time when teams tend to attempt this challenge and there were seven teams on the ice at the same time as us. To the best my knowledge however, not one of them has made it to the Pole. Many of them were forced to abandon their journey because of the conditions, with one team suffering from a serious case of frost bite. In the end, we had little choice to accept the lift from the helicopter to our final destination.

The weather really has taken everybody by surprise. We have faced winds of up to 50 knots – unheard of in the Arctic which, despite out best efforts, were constantly pushing us back. It was not uncommon for us to walk some eight or nine miles a day, only to be pushed back ten miles by the wind. In the end, reaching the half-way point was the furthest that we could realistically make.

Also unprecedented were the levels of open water that we encountered during our journey. Several times we found ourselves completely “zeroed in” by open water and on a number of occasions, if it wasn’t for the experience of our team leader, Rune, we may never have got out. The Ice Camp in Barneo also had major problems, with a huge stretch of open water dividing the camp and the runway, forcing it to be relocated for the first time in the station’s history! Perhaps that is a sign of global warming?

I feel extremely privileged to have seen all sides of the Arctic, from the open water to the frozen ice pans and the ice rubble that was literally disintegrating in front of our very eyes.

It has been an amazing experience. It was scary at times but it was certainly character building. I’ll be staying in Spitsbergen in the high Arctic, where I am calling from at the moment, for the next few days whilst I write up my thoughts and collate my videos and photographs. These will be posted on the website in the next few days.

The only question remaining is – how much money has been raised for my two charities? A huge thank you to you, if you have donated, the projects really will make a difference to the chosen charities. If you are considering donating,  just click on the charity links here Riders for Health and BASIC.

To listen to the podcast, click on the play button below.

David called back to the UK base camp at 15:14 BST from exactly 90′ N, meaning that he and the team have successfully reached the geographic North Pole.

David has also checked in at Foursquare, claiming the coveted North Pole badge.

You can listen to David’s call from the top of the world by clicking the play button below.

Yesterday we broke camp at a reasonable time, spending around 3 hours negotiating lots of open water, a problem made all the worse by the frequent storms and mild temperatures. Eventually we found ourselves “zeroed-out” by the open water, meaning that we couldn’t move any further. This meant that we lost around three hours of progress tracking back to camp to regain our bearings.

We set off again however and later decided on an early finish, with the storms still raging.

Today however, the storms have forced us to spend the entire day in the tent. You can hear the winds blowing against the side of the tent, which really adds to the drama of the whole experience. At the moment, we’ve been stuck in the tent for around 30 hours, only venturing outside to make very quick checks on the conditions. All we can really do at the moment is sit it out.

At the moment we’re at 89’34”321N, 103’48”897E with the ice drifting very fast from east to west, with a slight movement north.

As I mentioned in my last update, I won’t be calling in every day because we need to conserve the batteries on the satellite phone. I hope to get an update to you towards the end of the week but in the meantime, I’d like to say thank-you once again to everybody who has supported my charities, Riders for Health and BASIC.

Remember that you can also follow my adventure on Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare, as well as downloading my podcasts for free in the iTunes Store. To listen to my latest podcast, click on the play button below.