First day of the trek and we arranged for a taxi to take us from Pokhara to the start of our trek at Phedi, the ride took about an hour and a half the sun was blazing as we slowly climbed higher than Pokhara.

We walked to a small village called Birethani which looked like a beautiful scene from the lake district in England, here we registered our permits and were ready to get going!

The walk was beautiful by the lakeside past trees with bright red flowers which stood out against the landscape of the scenery. We decided to stop at a small place called Shinning River which was a beautiful little lodge set by a beautiful garden with views out down to the river which is where we sat after the days walk and relaxed with a few beers.

The next day we headed to Gandruk, it was a day surrounded yet again by beautiful scenery and we knew we were getting ever closer to the Annapurna range. Unfortunately though illness was setting in Sam had already been unwell and Val became quite ill that day. We decided to stop for the day at a lovely lodge called Hotel Sherpa which had a back lawn for campers and provided an excellent picnic spot. We sat in the sun drinking rum and playing cards and haggled a price for a massage for Val.

The following day Val had had a very poorly night and with Sam still suffering we decided to just travel the hour walk uphill to the main village of Gandruk where we had heard there were museums and lots of things to see.

We stayed at yet another lovely place called Buddha view hotel and the view from our room was unbelievable fishtail to our right and Annapurna I to our front, as we sat in the courtyard no words were needed as the view was simpily breath taking and we were so lucky that day as there weren’t many clouds until late afternoon when the enourmous masses were hiden partially from sight.

The next day we stayed in Gandruk and went and looked around the little village which was fasinating with the little local houses and people going about their daily business tending to their land and crops.  With illness still at ba, we decided to start heading back and so spent day walking for about 5 hours in a steep decent down to a place called Beehive, so called because of all the massive beehive attached to the rock face at the side of the river.

The following day we headed back towards Pokhara which took about 7 hours to reach Birethani, Sam did it in less time as he had gone ahead keen to get medical treatment in Pokhara.

The Annapurna base camp wasn’t to be for us hindered by illness but perhaps it wouldn’t have been anyway as we met a guy at the beehive whom we had met on our trek and nicknamed him “Whiffer”. Whiffer told us that he had tried for base camp but the snow and rain had made him turn back.

We had however seen the most stunning scenery and enjoyed it all from the comfort of Buddha view courtyard garden sitting in the sunshine so we didn’t feel as if we had missed out at all!