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shaped with a large flat area on top, and, in the absence of
anything better, I headed for that. As I approached the centre
of the island I slowed my pace, dragging each ski steadily and
deliberately to elongate every stride, until finally I stopped.
I squinted up at the sun.
'It's over,' I said aloud, partly to the sun and partly to myself.
The sun was abnormally quiet for once, presumably
as overcome by the surprise of the moment as I was. After
counting the hours and the miles for so long it now all seemed
to have come to an end too quickly. I reached for my water
bottle and sat on my sledge in silence, gulping and watching
the mountains. Having skied 1,744 kilometres in the previous
fifty-nine days, I was now the first and only woman in the
world ever to have crossed Antarctica alone.
I had traversed a continent.
I had skied across Antarctica.
The thought sounded absurd. It seemed barely credible to
have skied so far, to have traversed an entire landmass, even
though I could remember every stride, every moment, every
inch. I imagined a map of Antarctica and my ski tracks leaving
two unbroken parallel lines right the way across it. It was
like looking down from the top of a ladder and realising for
the first time how high I had climbed. While climbing you
have to focus on each rung, absorbed by each new footing
and only when safely at the top can you appreciate the view.
Similarly, I had needed to be absorbed by each footfall, by the
individual incidences of each day and only now could I start
to see how far those footfalls had carried me. It was hard
to take in. Just as the scale of the journey had prevented me
thinking of the whole, now it prevented me from being able to
appreciate what had been completed. I didn't feel triumphant
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