South pole ladies don’t use cars

• 

Oh la la! Feeling cold already? Then stop reading, since things are getting much colder from here. We thought it would be appropriate to stand still with an achievement made on this very day in 1958. When New Zealand explorer Sir Edmund Hillary arrived at the South Pole. He was the first overland explorer to do so since Captain Robert F Scott's expedition in 1912.

It had been a gruelling challenge and Sir Edmund and his team, who had only one drum of petrol left when they got sight of the Polar base. This would have been enough for the tractors which they used for some 20 miles. On the radio he commented later: “It is tough, but not too tough.” Good man.

But to keep with our Friday Lady theme we found that on this day in 2000, exactly 42 years after Sir Edmund Hillary’s exploration of the South Pole, a team of two British women arrived on the very same spot.

Catherine Hartley and Fiona Thornewill did so with another seven gentlemen, using sledges and withstanding temperatures as low as -48C. Then-34 years old Miss Hartley managed to speak to the media on the spot, stating: “I am absolutely elated because the journey was a real struggle for me. I had to fight every inch of the way to get here and there were times when I honestly didn't think I was going to make it.”

(Words editor, picture source unknown)

Aggiunga un commento...