Wake up and hesitate to get up as it’s rather chilly today (around 3 degrees) and basically no hot water for showers either – brisk cold to get clean though!

Have some, breakfast – porridge, toast and scrambled eggs – and our gravy coffee again ????

Beautiful day: it’s foggy but the sun is trying to peak out so where we’re heading it should be all sun

Our day starts by being boated to land, on a shikara we learn it’s called

Chaos on the other side as other people are leaving/arriving and people trying to sell, and a stray doggo following us to our car

We’re taken to the car and then start the drive

We pass a very old place called Mughal Gardens – supposedly about 800 years old – unfortunately, it’s not a great time of year to see as there are limited flowers on show

Naseem Bagh, a park, has lots of “Mughal trees”: they are trees brought to the area by the Mughal people hundreds of years ago and they originate from Iran – we saw these also on the Mughul-made islands on Dal Lake yesterday

Driving past rice fields… and marajawana grass – it’s illegal now but they can’t help it growing naturally!

Dave spots snowy peaks: we’re in the mountains!

Lots of livestock being herded via the roads, causing mischief and traffic

It rained last night so we’re told that today there is fresh snow on the mountains

There are lots of “hairy trees” around – these are actually just trees with hay in so that the village can use, even when there’s 3ft of snow and it’s kept dry

About 2.5 hours later, we arrive in Sonamarg

They’re currently building a tunnel through the mountain as when the snow gets too high, the whole area is cut off from civilization

We enter an area filled with various hotels – even a Radisson – and we’re dropped off

The sanctuary is famous for harbouring a wide variety of animals such as Asiatic Black Bear, Brown Bear, Snow Leopard, Common Leopard, Musk Deer, Ibex, Serow

We stroll through a soft path already made, being some of the first to reach here today

We walk for about 45 mins and reach where the horses stop and what few people there are around the place are sprawled about

Our guide takes us off piste – you better be prepared for wet feet!

After a couple unsteady footings, we make the top and have a lovely viewpoint of the Thajwas glacier

It’s a glacial stream close to us but you can see it at the back in it’s true form of ice and snow

Couple of pictures and a little bite to eat before we carry on

Again off-piste – all fresh snow – we head towards a pipeline that acts as a sort of path

Following it round, it takes us to a more secluded area and is shaded too (little bit cooler)

Keep going and we reach two bridges

You can see the glacier clearer than before here

We head back and our guide suggests a shortcut – he runs ahead so we might as well follow someone who knows their way around here!

Fresh snow also means we don’t know if the path is safe – so that was fun ???? – but it allows for a little fun trying to get down the hill!

We make it and horses are still everywhere (and their poop)

Track is definitely more sludgy than when we first started

We see people with skii gear and lots of sledges

Down and through the muddy paths, we make it back in one piece to the car

Heading back to our house boat

We stop off somewhere for some hot tea half way back – we get some cake akin to Welsh/Rock Cakes

Back in the car until we meet the shikara stand/port

Get on the boat and warm through – get all our socks and shoes in front of the oil heater – and then we’re shown some crafts from around the area

Dinner time

We’re both knackered so head for an early night before we leave here tomorrow