Day 197. Pokhara, Nepal. Preperation, preparation, preparation.

If all goes swimmingly, this time next week we'll be sitting 4000 metres up admiring the view and congratulating ourselves on half a job well done (we'll have to come back down remember).

This is going to be no Sunday stroll along the South Downs however, so today we wrote about 15 lists detailing all those boring but important things we'll need to take. Diarrhea pills, water purification tablets, chocolate, torch batteries, long-johns, chocolate, woolly hats, vests, chocolate and so on.

Of course, deciding what not to take is the tricky part. We'll be lugging our bags for up to 7 hours each day, so the lighter they are, the better. Pack, discard half of what's in your bag, then pack again is the serious hiker's mantra and that's pretty much what we did today.

I still might sneak in some more chocolate when Wend's not looking mind.