IT may not be everybody's idea of a holiday, but one group of North Yorkshire youngsters can truly say they have been on the trip of a lifetime.

The intrepid band swapped the comforts of home for the wilds of Mongolia and a diet of yak meat and horse milk.

The eight teenagers from Northallerton travelled to the Blue Sky camp on a trip backed by the county council's Continuing Education Unit.

Originally, youngsters of many other nationalities were supposed to attend but most backed out, leaving the eight North Yorkshire students 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.

"We applied to the British Council for the £4,000 grant and couldn't believe it when we got it. We then had to raise another £7,000 for the trip."

The students were aged between 15 and 18. The camp was organised by the non profit-making Mongolian Youth Development Centre.

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

"It's a really harsh place and the food is awful - fatty gristly mutton, yak and horse milk.

"Thankfully, we were protected to a large extent from the extremes of Mongolian cuisine by amazing cooks at the camp who managed to cook up, from goodness knows where, a few veg, eggs and even chicken."