Meet the ACTION heroines

WENDY SEARLE, 41, is a full-time civil servant. She skied across Greenland to prepare for her latest challenge: an unsupported solo ski to the South Pole, a journey only six women have completed before.

I became hooked on the idea of doing an Antarctic expedition four years ago. Through my job at the time, working for a military charity, I met an Army team embarking on one and it fired my interest. Antarctica is a continent like nowhere else on the planet; it’s the highest, driest, coldest, most inhospitable place on Earth. There’s an almost otherworldly quality about it. Before long I was reading about polar history and going to lectures on cold weather injuries. While colleagues commented about how horrendous it sounded, I remember thinking, ‘Why would anyone not want to try this?’ I wondered if someone like me could do something like that.

That pipe dream grew into a germ of an idea, which then grew into a plan, and the plan became the expedition. Now it almost has a life of its own.

In November, I will be setting out from the coastline of