Dutch adventurer and actress, Manon Ossevoort, also known as the “Tractor Girl,” has arrived at the South Pole after driving a tractor from Europe, passing through Africa, and across the frozen wastes of Antarctica. ABC news covers her dventure:
“It’s quite emotional, I’m very happy,” Ms Ossevoort told AFP by satellite telephone shortly after arriving at the Pole on Tuesday.
In doing so she fulfilled a decade-long dream.
“It feels quite magical really, to have made this happen and arrived here,” she said.
The new mother of a 10-month-old baby said the the 16-day trip taking her 2,500 kilometres across the largest single mass of ice on earth from Russia’s Novo base to the Pole had been tough.
Ms Ossevoort said driving the large red Massey Ferguson tractor over the rugged, icy landscape at an average speed of about 10 kilometres per hour was “like rodeo riding”.
But she said the worst part of the trip was “the day that I was driving for hours and hours and couldn’t go faster than between 0.5 and five kilometres per hour”.
“I really was worried then that the expedition could come to a halt if conditions would get just a little bit worse,” she said.
