NZ woman reaches South Pole

Kiwi adventurer Kylie Wakelin. Photo / Sarah Ivey

Twizel's Kylie Wakelin and her Commonwealth Antarctic expedition team have made it to the South Pole after 50 days' trekking - making her the first New Zealand woman to achieve the feat.

The seven-strong team reached the South Pole just after 11pm yesterday - an experience Ms Wakelin described as "absolutely brilliant".

"We're all absolutely ecstatic. The feeling of finally getting there was absolutely brilliant," she told the Timaru Herald.

"We're a little bit short on food but we are now under the safety umbrella."

Each woman was in good health, having towed an 80kg sled loaded with food, fuel and equipment for the past 39 days - skiing for six to 10 hours a day - to travel nearly 900km to the pole and mark the 60th anniversary of the Commonwealth.

They expected to be airlifted from the pole back to their starting point, a commercial expedition base at the Patriot Hills, near the bottom of South America, and then to fly back to London via Chile.

On the return journey they will take their first showers since November 12.

Ms Wakelin stepped in as New Zealand's representative on the team in early October, after the expedition's British leader, Felicity Aston, axed New Zealand Army doctor Major Charmaine Tate, 33, who had trained for the expedition with the international team in both Norway and New Zealand.

Ms 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".

Ms 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 in a number of countries, as well as working one season for the British Antarctic Survey .

The expedition comprises women from Brunei, Cyprus, Ghana, India, Singapore and Britain.

Ms Aston said in the expedition blog that the team was almost out of the plastic bags it used to carry its toilet waste on the sleds.

"We only have a few left so it's absolutely vital that we get to the Pole soon" she said today.

"None of us will ever take for granted hot running water or a flushing toilet ever again."

- NZPA