KEY POINTS:
New Zealander Helen Thayer celebrated her 40th wedding anniversary by walking 2500km across the Gobi Desert with her American husband, Bill.
Helen Thayer was 63 during the trip, and her husband 74, and they have just published a book on their Mongolian journey in 2000, Walking the Gobi, the Seattle Times reports.
The couple, who have a 4.8ha lifestyle block 30km north of Seattle, have previously trekked to the Arctic and Antarctic; walked 6400km across the Sahara Desert; kayaked 1900km in the Amazon rainforest; and lived for a year in the Yukon and Northwest Territories among wild wolves.
Helen's first book, Polar Dream, about being the first woman to ski solo to the North Magnetic Pole in 1988, became a best-seller, and National Geographic and the National Public Radio network in the US named her one of the great explorers of the 20th century.
The Gobi journey began for her in New Zealand when - at the age of 13 - she heard her teacher describe the Mongolian desert.
After marrying Bill, an American who came to spray her family's crops by helicopter, she went on to represent three countries - New Zealand, Guatemala and the US - in track and field, and became the US national luge champion in 1975.
Her second book, Three Among the Wolves, came out in 2004, documenting the years of 1994-95 when the Thayers lived with wolf packs in the Arctic.
For their 40th anniversary the Thayers headed to the Gobi Desert, even though they were still recovering from a car accident that damaged Helen's leg and back.
The couple averaged 32km a day on foot in temperatures that reached 52C and came out the other side 81 days later "looking and feeling like fried eggs", according to Helen.
Along the way they coped with snakes, drug smugglers, and "black day" sand storms, crouching behind their two pack camels, Tom and Jerry, that they led as they walked. They were threatened with execution by Chinese border guards and stung by scorpions.
The couple were resupplied every 20 days by plane, but after one of the camels crushed the water containers, they were stumbling towards death until they found a waterhole with water they could desalinate.
They found life deep in the Mongolian desert unchanged in many ways from the days of the conquering Genghis Khan.
When not adventuring the couple share a farmlet with goats, rescued dogs, a cat and a donkey.
Helen, now aged 69, and Bill, 80 - are now eyeing Tibet's rugged back country. They still walk, run, climb and lift weights, and tramp and travel on snowshoes in Washington State's North Cascades and make no concession to old age.
- NZPA
