RECORD breaking adventurer Rob Gauntlett's girlfriend has told of a text conversation she had with her boyfriend days before he died.
Rob Gauntlett died alongside his close friend James Atkinson, both 21, in the French Alps on Saturday January 10.
Lucinda Hutchins, 21, Mr Gauntlett's girlfriend of four years, said her whole world fell apart when her boyfriend's family called to give her the news of his death on Saturday evening.
Mr Atkinson's family told the County Times they still couldn't believe what had happened to their wonderful son and brother.
Miss Hutchins sent a text to her boyfriend days before his death, as the men moved out of mobile phone contact, imploring him to be careful and not to push himself too hard.
She told Mr Gauntlett that he had family and friends at home who loved him and worried about him.
"I got a reply telling me not to worry and that he would be fine," Miss Hutchins said.
She said she and Mr Gauntlett - who met at Christ's Hospital when they were both 11 - had been planning to save enough money to move in together, that the young couple were looking forward to spending more time together and that Mr Gauntlett had been excited about his future when she last saw him on New Years Day.
"He was really looking forward to what 2009 had to offer," she said.
The day after this last meeting, the friends set off on their ill-fated French mountaineering holiday with another Christ's Hospital School mate Richard Lebon - who gained recognition of his own after he partnered Mr Gauntlett on a gruelling 1,700 mile cycle from Bilbao, Spain, to Istanbul, Turkey, in 2005.
The group were due to return to the UK from France on Wednesday January 14 but the bodies of Mr Gauntlett and Mr Atkinson were found by climbers at 8am on Saturday morning.
Miss Hutchins said: "They split into two groups of two. Rob and James Hooper were the more experienced climbers so they led James (Atkinson] and Richard.
"They were all very careful, very experienced and very sensible and wouldn't have taken any unnecessary risks.
"This was just an awful, tragic accident."
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