What were the highlights and the lowlights of the trip, can you tell us what is the North Pole really like?

One of the things we couldn’t prepare for was the cold, our theory was that it is similar to pain, so for example if you were to crunch and break your foot it’s extremely painful. However, if two months later someone hits your thumb with a hammer, because you have had something worse, it doesn’t make it not sore, it’s just not as bad. So we knew the North Pole was going to be hard whether we had been exposed to it or not, and we knew we just had to deal with it when it happened. The cold was definitely the hardest part for me. It’s extremely cold and it’s never warm, there’s no retreat, not even just to catch up for an hour, it’s cold all the time.

We had a really good team of people so the camaraderie was fantastic, a lot of laughs, so when the guys were tired, we shared some humour. We skied for an average of 10 hours every day. You can’t have long breaks because it is too cold, so every hour you stop, have a quick drink and snack, and carry on. I enjoyed the endurance side of it.

The first ever South African team to go to the North Pole