Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
uninhabited and functions as another starting and departure point for
expeditions to the North Pole. There is an airstrip and a hangar-like
building. When we were ready to set out from the Pole, though, it was
difficult to know which way to go! Obviously, we are heading south,
but we also need to aim further to the west than where the island is
situated, to allow for ice drift. This will become more difficult as we get
closer to Canada, where the currents pick up. Thank goodness we have
Eric with us as our guide.
Here's how things operate. We break up camp and set out between
8 and 9 am each day. Eric leads. I stay close to him. Clark and Jose
are in the rear. We all drag our kayaks, which are laden with tents and
other equipment and supplies. It's gruelling. We pull them over shift-
ing ice, and up and over pressure ridges, and use them to ford breaks
in the ice. We stumble, fall, bang our bodies against the ice. We keep
going, taking breaks every two hours or so when Eric decrees. Around
4 or 5 pm we stop and pitch camp. Climbing into our warm tent, out
of the freezing temperatures, the icy, driving wind and the glare of the
sun is the best part of each day.
It has been an extremely hard first day. I've been moving gin-
gerly on my skis, and we seem to have done nothing but climb over
2-metre-high pressure ridges, pulling our yellow kayaks—laden with
a red pack of provisions and gear weighing 100 kilograms—behind us.
After only two hours, I broke the bindings on my skis. Eric coughed a
lot. I am worried that the equipment will not stand up to all the smash-
ing around as we drag it over the piles of ice.
As we prepared to start out today, I felt like I was on the edge of a
cliff, ready to jump off. I contemplate my past, and my future. There
are a number of people whom I have helped in my life and a number
of people I've let down. To those people I want to take this chance to
say that I'm sorry, but I am who I am and hopefully the things that I
do in the future will justify my single-mindedness and my determined
attitude. In all of my runs, I have used positive visualisation to take me
out of my pain, and never have thoughts of happy days at home with
my kids in sunny Sydney, or arriving victorious at the South Pole early
next year, been more beneficial to me than here. This event will call on
every ounce of energy, every bit of will and determination I have just to
finish, but my goal is not only to finish but to change the lives of many
thousands of people worldwide. I will not give up.
