For those crews who hadn’t managed to take the Everest flight yesterday, then today was the day. There’s no traffic at 5.30am so we arrived at the airport within minutes. We were whisked through security and on board, comfortably settled in our seats, within an hour of leaving the hotel. 

Everyone has a window seat, and the flight itself is like skimming through the pages of a North Face catalogue. The views are breathtaking and the champagne very welcome. And, we can also confirm, the roof of the world is painted a shade of deep blue.

Away from the lofty heights though, there was still a bit of spannering going on, Roy Stephenson and Peter Robinson for example managed to get a new alternator fitted to their Datsun and almost everyone used today as an opportunity to do little spring cleaning in and around the footwells and dashboards. It’s been a dusty few days.

After lunch, a couple of crews were lucky enough to secure permission to take their Bentleys into Basantapur a UNESCO World Heritage site, for a spot of sightseeing. Jonathan Turner’s 1997 Peking to Paris car was joined by Bill Cleyndert’s Super Sports and, both cars were quickly swallowed up by the hordes of tourists and souvenir sellers all keen to get in on the action.

Other than that we can also report that the pool was busy, it didn’t rain and the word from the 48 hour car is that getting out of the valley is a lot easier than getting in.

Tomorrow we set a course for Chitwan on the final leg of the Himalayan Challenge.

Syd Stelvio