Tag: south pole

Preet has just made history becoming the first woman of colour to complete a solo expedition in Antartica. She completed the 700 miles in only 40 days.

She says:

Hello everyone, checking in from day 40. I made it to the South Pole where its snowing. Feeling so many emotions right now. I knew nothing about the polar world three years ago and it feels so surreal to finally be here. It was tough getting here and I want to thank everybody for their support.

This expedition was always about so much more than me. I want to encourage people to push their boundaries and to believe in themselves, and I want you to be able to do it without being labelled a rebel. I have been told no on many occasions and told to “just do the normal thing”, but we create our own normal. You are capable of anything you want. No-matter where you are from or where your start line is, everybody starts somewhere. I dont want to just break the glass ceiling, I want to smash it into a million pieces.

Whos with me?

You can see my live location and listen to my audio updates here.

Hi everyone. Apologies for not doing my audio blog over the last few days. It has been a long few days but I’m doing well and I’m super close now as well. So, the weather can change so quickly here, it was so cold yesterday, I think about minus 45 degrees with wind chill and then in the afternoon there was hardly any wind at all which was amazing.

It definitely feels colder in the last degree where I’m at higher altitude. I haven’t seen anyone here in the last degree and now I’m 15 nautical miles from the south pole. I cant believe I’m almost there.

This blog goes out to some of my friends. My friends are basically like family to me. I call them when I’m travelling. I have a room at each of their houses. I know their families and they are people that I know will always be in my life. I read somewhere that when you ask people to be your bridesmaids its nice to do it in a special way, so all the way from Antarctica I would love nothing more than for you to be my bridesmaids. Sonia Chandi, Rachel Tucker-Norton, Kamal Dhamrait, Tig Bridge, Hannah Sawford (or Hannah Smith now) and Collette Davey. I love you all and would love you to be my bridesmaids. I think at least three hen do’s are required. That’s normal right? But even if its not normal that’s never been anything to stop me.

That’s all for tonight. I’ll check in tomorrow. Bye.

You can see my live location and listen to my audio updates here.

Hi everyone, I made it to the last degree. So I’m on the final 60 nautical miles which is a big milestone. I might even see other people soon as there are a few last degree expeditions going on. I had a long day, just under 20 hours. Its 24 hour daylight but it suddenly gets a lot colder when there’s cloud cover or a whiteout which is what I had for a few hours.

This post goes out to Hannah McKeand (@hannahmckeand), Devon McDermitt (@mcddevo) and Denise Martin. The first polar course I did was Hannah’s Polar Expedition Training course (@polarexpeditiontraining) in Norway in Finse in Feb 2020 and it gave me a fantastic baseline, I learned a lot from the course and some really great instructors. So thankyou very much. I’ve learned from some really amazing people which has really helped me while I’m out here.

Ok, wish me luck for the last degree. That’s all for tonight.

You can see my live location and listen to my audio updates here.

Hi everyone, its getting colder now and I can definitely feel it. The Sastrugi’s a lot lighter now which is great. As of tomorrow I’ve decided *coughing* . . . every time I speak I start coughing and obviously I’m not speaking much which is why you always hear me coughing on the phone. So, as of tomorrow I’ve decided I’m going to pretend as though I’ve just started, I’m fresh, and I’ve got around 5 or so days to go. Just a different way of breaking it up and I’ve done 5 day events and races and things before so no problem at all.

This blog goes out to a few companies who have been so helpful over the last few months and gone out of their way to help me with my kit and preparation. Thank you so much to Jon at The Piste Office (@thepisteoffice), everyone working at Needles in Derby City Centre and Nigel from Prestige Embroidery. Nigel tells me he has no social media so if you know him, please make sure he listens to this blog, thank you very much!

You can see my live location and listen to my audio updates here.

Feeling much better than yesterday and had a well needed sleep. Visibility was good today too which is always nice. Overall I’m doing ok. Im tired but each day I’m getting closer to the south pole and I’m also getting closer to having a coke zero which I’m very excited about.

This blog goes out to Pete Swaile (@peteswaile) who has been helping me with my specific strength training for the last few months. I just want to say thank you so much Pete, I definitely felt stronger and definitely been a huge help out here as well.

Ok, thats all for tonight.

You can see my live location and listen to my audio updates here.

Hi everyone. Day 33. I hope everyone had a good Christmas. Today felt like one of my hardest days. Not because of the terrain, as the Sastrugi are getting smaller and I had good visibility as well. But I havent been sleeping a huge amount and I think thats caught up to me.

I was sick a few times today which is actually just annoying because you dont want to take your facemask off and on top of that I also had diarrhea today. Really not what you want when you’re out here. So I had a shorter day, so I’m going to get a good sleep tonight before tackling tomorrow.

This post goes out to Are Johansen (@arejohansen) who was my guide when I trained in Greenland last year.  It was a tough trip on so many levels, financially, physically, mentally and I learnt so much from it. Thank you Are for all of your support and advice. When I’m having a tough time out here, I think to myself  ‘At least I’m not tent bound stuck in a storm for 6 days!’

Thats all for tonight.

You can see my live location and listen to my audio updates here.

I genuinely wouldnt know what day it was if I didn’t do a daily blog. They kind of merge into one and the days feel like they are getting longer. I’m feeling pretty tired and I’m also getting closer to the pole. There was low cloud today, when you really struggle to see the ground, but otherwise all good. Thinking about getting to the south pole now! Still concentrating on each degree at a time.

Merry Christmas from Antarctica!

This post goes out to all of my family, I hope you have a great day and that you have a cardboard cut out of me at the table, which I think is a totally reasonable request. I always quite liked the simple things around Christmas, like my mum usually makes me tandoori chicken so I’m looking forward to that when I’m back!

I hope everyone has a lovely christmas and I look forward to seeing everyone when im back. Thats all for tonight.

You can see my live location and listen to my audio updates here.

Hi Everyone. Still making my way through the Sastrugi. Visibility was good which is helpful. Its going slow through this section, around 30mph winds today. It’s also getting colder which means I dont stop for as long on the breaks. I’m feeling ok, a bit tired.

I would like to dedicate this post to Nics Wetherill who is an Army Doctor and has helped me with all of the medical planning for this expedition. Thank you so much for all of your help.

I’m doing well so far, obviously I’ve got a cough which you can hear. But I’ve had that since the beginning pretty much. I’m a bit tired but I’m getting closer to the south pole so I am looking forward to that. I hope everybody’s enjoying listening to these voice messages.

That’s all for tonight.

You can see my live location and listen to my audio updates here.

Hi Everyone on day 30. This morning was really tough, it was a whiteout, I’m still in the section with a lot of Sastrugi. I fell a few times (nothing serious) and I had to use my arms to pull the pulk out from the deep Sastrugi areas. They can get to a few meters high so when its a whiteout and you cant see you’re stepping very carefully.

I’m still making good progress though, I’m feeling tired by that’s to be expected and I’m still thinking about that coke zero at the end.

Every 10 days I’m celebrating something as I open up a new bag and today I am celebrating my engagement! I got engaged a few weeks before leaving the UK! It has been such a whirlwind that I didn’t get to celebrate. And on that note, this blog goes out to my partner, David who has been waking up every morning in the early hours every morning for my check-in call while on this expedition. Dave is quite simply my rock.

That’s all for tonight. Thanks very much.

You can see my live location and listen to my audio updates here.

Hi Everyone. So the terrain is pretty similar to the last few days. Lots of Sastrugi, uphill and headwind. Still lots and lots of uphill. At one point I was daydreaming about how it would feel going the other way with the wind behind me.

I’m doing ok so far. Bit tired. Feels strange to have been alone for 29 days, its funny I thought id feel more lonely but to be honest I felt much more lonely as a teenager living away and playing a sport full time I wasn’t enjoying.

Maybe while I’m here its because I know I have a lot of people supporting me or because I know it’s about much more than me. I also have my precious voice notes from my friends that I listen to on tough days. I never have much downtime, I’m quite enjoying my audiobooks as well as I’m going.

This is for my grandma (my Nani Ji) who is always ready to make me food no matter how quickly I’m passing through Derby. She gave me some money for Christmas before I left and told me to buy myself something. I tried to explain that I wouldn’t be getting anything from Antarctica but there was absolutely no way she wasn’t going to  give me that money. Thank you Grandma, I’ll get something on my way back.

That’s all for tonight.

You can see my live location and listen to my audio updates here.