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Posted on Thursday December 31st at 9:17 a.m.
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The Commonwealth Ladies Ski Expedition has reached the South Pole after more than a month of trekking across the Antarctica. Kylie Wakelin of Twizel is second from left.
Wakelin, 36, a member of an eight-woman team, arrived at the pole yesterday afternoon.
"We are on da home run and if i can keep my thumbs warm, ITS IN THE BAG!" she said in a "tweet" on the Commonwealth women's expedition website just before completing the journey.
Each woman has towed an 80-kilogram sled loaded with food, fuel and equipment for the past 39 days - skiing for six to 10 hours a day - to travel nearly 900 kilometres to the pole and mark the 60th anniversary of the Commonwealth.
The group was to be airlifted from the pole back to their starting point, a commercial expedition base at Patriot Hills, before flying back to London via Chile.
The women will soon have their first showers since November 12, with each rationed to one baby-wipe tissue a day for hygiene.
Wakelin stepped in as New Zealand's representative in early October after the expedition's British leader, Felicity Aston, axed a New Zealand Army doctor, Major Charmaine Tate, 33.
Tate had trained for the expedition with the international team in Norway and New Zealand.
Aston said at the time that the "team dynamics weren't quite right, so I decided to change the personnel before the team got anywhere near the Ice".
Wakelin was selected after spending 16 years running Glacier Explorers' boat trips in the small lake at the foot of the Tasman Glacier and taking part in ski-touring and mountaineering expeditions, as well as working for the British Antarctic Survey.
The expedition includes women from Brunei Darussalam, Cyprus, Ghana, India, Singapore and Britain.
Aston said in the expedition blog that the team was almost out of the plastic bags it used to carry toilet waste on the sleds so that all waste could be removed from Antarctica.
"We only have a few [bags] left, so it's absolutely vital that we get to the pole soon" she said yesterday.
"None of us will ever take for granted hot running water or a flushing toilet ever again," Aston added.
Source: The Press
Article: By GILES BROWN
-With NZPA