KEY POINTS:
Just short of the South Pole, New Zealand Antarctic adventurer Jamie Fitzgerald turned to his sledding companion of 52 days Kevin Biggar and told him their next expedition should be shorter and warmer.
Fitzgerald and Biggar have rowed across the Atlantic Ocean together and today became the first New Zealanders to travel unassisted to the South Pole, dragging 160kg sleds uphill for 1100km.
"This is the South Pole here," Biggar answered the satellite phone today.
The 36-year-old Aucklander said the South Pole looked just as it should - a barber's type striped red and white pole topped by a mirror ball.
He and Fitzgerald had two tablespoons left of vodka from the 500ml they began with at 80 degrees south, having supped a spoonful at every degree they crossed closer to 90 degrees south at the pole, so they toasted themselves with that and had some pork crackling.
Biggar and Fitzgerald, 26 of Tauranga, had planned to make the return trip to the Patriot Hills base near the coast dragged by kites, but Fitzgerald's torn hamstrings, which had plagued him for the last 600km of the trip, meant the medical advice was to stay at the American research base at the pole and then by flown back.
The pair reached the pole at 11am today after six hours walking, ending three years of planning, preparation and sledding.
"It's quite a wonderful experience. Yes, it's all been worthwhile. If you asked me a week ago I would have said no," Biggar said.
"There were no easy days."
He had blackened toenails and at the American base found he had lost 23kg, and Fitzgerald had lost a similar amount.
"In a tent, you're pulling on and off clothes and you don't really get a good view of what you look at.
"At the base when we went to use the bathroom, we took off our clothes and we are just cut - we should be in a body-building competition.... well, scrawny perhaps, rather than buff."
Biggar said they had no plans for another adventure at this stage.
"We were walking up to the pole, it's a mile away, and I had the conversation with Jamie.
"He says to me: "I don't know, mate, but it's not long and it's not cold.'
"But there will be another adventure."
They expected to be picked up in the next couple of days, taken to Patriot Hills and would then have to wait up to a week to be flown back to South America, before getting home to New Zealand.
Biggar said the best moments on the trip were the sat isfaction of a good day's sledding and a meal at the end of the day.
"One of the gifts that Antarctica gives you is it's a very simplified environment, very demanding environment, but very simplified.
"You're stripped of a lot of the difficulties of living in a society and it allows you to appreciate everything you don't have.
"We daydreamed constantly about family, friends and food."
The worst moment was a fall into a crevasse, "that gave me a little bit of a scare".
It was also "gutting, really, and disappointing" to have to make the decision not to make the return trip on foot.
Biggar said they were the first New Zealanders to walk unsupported to the South Pole and less than 40 people in total had done it.
"That's about as many people as who have walked on the moon," he said.
"The icing on the cake would have been to come away with a world first, not a New Zealand first."
- NZPA
