Eight teenagers from Northallerton swapped home comforts for the Mongolian wilds and a diet of yak meat and horse milk.

They travelled to the Blue Sky camp on a trip backed by North Yorkshire County Council. Youngsters of many nationalities were supposed to be there but most backed out, leaving the eight in the company of 60 Mongolian children, two Danish youngsters and one from Puerto Rico.

Youth worker Emma Casson said: "It was a remarkable place and a fabulous experience for everyone."

Emma said: "We stayed in wooden huts, had to wash our clothes by hand with water from a borehole and the toilet was a hole in the ground. "

The party went on a trip to the Gobi Desert, visiting the Flaming Cliffs, where some of the most significant dinosaur finds in the world have been discovered.