Blimey. A friend of my mum's has a copy of The Worst journey in the World signed by two of Scott's men pic.twitter.com/gHTUwiZMOU

— Ben Saunders (@polarben) March 29, 2014

@polarben "It is our duty as men and women to proceed as though the limits of our abilities do not exist." Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

— Katherine Konner (@soulboat) February 21, 2014

You wouldn't expect a polar explorer to hook on to a theologian to find advice that a stroke patient can take to heart. Reminds me of the tagline I saw on a box of supplies in rehab a while ago.

First, Ben Saunders, after completing his 1800 mile expedition in Antarctica

"With each step, try to reach a bit further forward than you think you can" - @polarben #inspiration #QuoteOfTheDay

— The Scott Expedition (@scottexpedition) February 7, 2014

Then, Fast Company last night

"Be a little better today than you were yesterday. If you do that enough days, you've traveled a great distance." http://t.co/3M0MHNZdP3

— Fast Company (@FastCompany) February 11, 2014

You wouldn't expect to discover a resin to unplug while you were on a return trip from the South Pole, but that's exactly what happened to Ben and Tarka: we rely on technology too much.

We seem to have passed through a weird Bermuda Triangle up here near the Pole; our satellite tracking beacon is on the blink and has turned itself off twice now, with a battery indicator that goes from full to flat in a few minutes, and our spare GPS (a little Garmin Gecko) conked out a few days ago and needed a hard reset that deleted all its waypoints. In addition, our main GPS was giving us some very wonky magnetic bearings to follow as we approached the Pole, but it seems to have sorted its act out now. It's quite alarming to realise how much faith we have in these tiny gadgets, and how utterly reliant we are on them to find our depots on the way home.