Christmas Day in Antartica

Christmas Day for Maria means another day of hard cycling. Antartica is vicious but beautiful says Maria's as she spends Christmas Day in the coldest place on earth.
Her cycling record has been an amazing 81km per day and on a continent where it never gets dark she has spent as little time as possible sleeping and the maximum time she can cycling.
Sudden changes in weather patterns bring total white outs and fierce winds constantly blast her progress.
Undaunted, Maria is determined to reach the South Pole within the next three days.

Well over half way

Maria completed her greatest mileage on December 22 83kms in 11 hours.

The weather was not so good the next day, as strong wind and snow drifts were slowing things down.  Her knee has being giving her some problems particularly when she stops and starts again but she is managing it as well as she can with plenty of pain killers and hopefully it will hold out until she gets to the South Pole.

Maria is well over half way to the Pole which is a fantastic achievement and she has completed the most difficult sections, lets hope that heavy snow does not drift in as this would be her biggest challenge going forward.

Top of the glacier

Amazing! Maria has just conquered the most feared part of her expedition - the Leverett Glacier!
It's only day three but this mammoth climb was the steepest part of her journey.
She set off this morning in white out conditions so bad that she could not see anything in front of her and had to navigate with her GPS.
Visibility improved later in the day and she then focused on the steepest part of the climb from 2200 metres to 2900 at the top. She has managed to cycle all of the way so far on her amazing cycle.
She now has to cycle 500k on the polar plateau to her destination.

Just landed in Antartica

Maria has landed at the Novo Russian Airbase in Antartica. She reports that conditions are good and it was amazing landing on a sheet of ice.
The Russian airbase is basic but the people are very friendly and she is enjoying the Russian food. She is trialing her polar cycle over the next few days while she waits for her next flight that will take her to her starting point.

Flying tomorrow

Just heard that Maria is due to fly tomorrow December 11 on a Russian cargo plane from Cape Town to the Alci airbase in Antartica. She had to assemble her bike before flying. Here she is pictured at the expedition base with her bike all packed up ready to go. Don't forget to put on those ten layers of clothing before you leave Maria!

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