The Last Great First: Return from the ice

Rebecca Archer
Welcome to the Remarkables, Grant Thornton's podcast that seeks to uncover stories about remarkable people doing incredible things for their community, bettering the world for future generations and inspiring others to do the same.

I'm Rebecca Archer, and today I'm joined by polar explorers and doctors, Gareth Andrews and Richard Stephenson from The Last Great First Antarctica 2023 for the second time on the show. They're back from their unsupported ski crossing of Antarctica, and we're excited to hear about their incredible adventure on the ice. Welcome back, Gareth and Richard!

Gareth Andrews
Thanks very much.

Richard Stephenson
Hi, Rebecca. Thanks for having us back

Rebecca Archer
Congratulations 1404 kilometres and 66 days, how are you both feeling mentally and physically?

Gareth Andrews
Personally, we've we've had a few weeks now where we've been off the ice, and it's been a really nice time to re-energise, to eat some good food and catch up on some sleep and spend some really quality family time. So, I'm feeling pretty much back to normal after being completely physically and mentally exhausted by the end of the expedition.

Richard Stephenson
Yeah, I'm very much the same really, I think, you know, it's interesting. When we finished the expedition, we were both – what would be considered by polar expedition terms – in fairly good nick, you know. We'd survived the rigors of it reasonably well, but certainly, I found that once we were off the ice and back into civilization, this sort of profound exhaustion sort of kicked in, and I found it took me several weeks to just really start to not feel like I just wanted to rest and sleep the whole time.

And I think there's quite a deficit in energy that when you're out there, the adrenaline is going, and you've got this huge drive behind you, and you've got this massive, massive goal ahead of you, you just keep on going. But, you know, I certainly noticed when I first got back, it took me quite a while to get back to normal. But yeah, certainly there now.

Rebecca Archer
And I understand that weather conditions proved to be a bit challenging, causing the journey to end early. What happened there exactly?

Gareth Andrews
We were attempting to, you know, to go further than anybody else in history – 2,000 kilometres across Antarctica. So right from the start, the challenge was…was epic. And then when we were in Punta Arenas – so our launch pad into Antarctica – we weren't able to get into Antarctica for a full seven days because of storms, and because they needed to clear snow off the runway for us to land in Antarctica – and that really, that seven days really… really hurt us.

So, the challenge was to go 2,000 kilometres in 73 days, but then when you turn that 73 days into 66 days, the challenge just gets even harder. And when I say 66 days, what that means is basically getting into Antarctica as soon as you can in that expedition season – so the summer season – getting in as soon as you can, and then leaving on the very last plane. So, on the end of day 66, everyone ships out of Antarctica, apart from the Government Scientists and the Government Bases, so all the search and rescue teams and all the infrastructure for expeditions get shipped out of Antarctica. And so, when we were faced with starting on the edge of Antarctica, or on the edge of Berkner Island, with 66 days to cover this distance, it really posed a massive challenge, and we needed everything to go right in terms of conditions and terrain, and it just didn't fall into place for us – and we can talk a little bit about why that is, as we go.

Richard Stephenson
I think that's a really important point. You know, we knew, you know, to be honest, when we were planning the adventure, we knew that it was something that was right at the edge of what's possible, but it also means you got to have a bit of luck on your side, and you need everything to go right. The previous longest unsupported polar ski journey is around 1,700 plus kilometres, and they took well over 73 days to do that. So, we were already being very, very ambitious in what we planned to do.

We knew it was possible, we thought it was possible, but we always knew it needed to go right, and we needed to have a bit of luck on your side. And you know, when you plan, you know, I mean, for me, the definition of adventure is always – it’s got to be that you don't know what's going to happen, you know, and particularly as Gareth says, with that delay getting into Antarctica at the start, it made the challenge that was already right on the edge of what's possible, a bit more difficult. And then we still needed huge amounts of luck, probably more than we could realistically expect in terms of the conditions and the actual journey itself, and, and as it turned out, that wasn't to be easier, we're actually quite unlucky in similar conditions that we faced. So, in the light of those things, we had to modify our goals, and we're certainly incredibly proud to have achieved something that's, you know, it's really quite amazing. It was an incredible experience, you know, in spite of those challenges.

Rebecca Archer
And when you did arrive at the South Pole, I'm dying to hear what that felt like. Was it a sense of relief or excitement? What went through your mind? Who did you tell first that you actually had made it, and what was the first thing that you did when you got there?

Gareth Andrews
I think it was a feeling of immense relief. The feeling of a journey that had we had been planning for, you know, 10 years coming to an end. And it's very emotional actually – more emotional than I was expecting. When we were about 10 kilometres away from the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, we came across some tyre tracks – so they drive these big research vehicles around the South Pole and they have these big tracks on them. When we saw these tracks, it was the first sign of human activities that we've seen in 66 days, and then on the very on the far horizon, we could just see the outline of some buildings, and it was very emotional, actually. And then when we got there, the first thing that we wanted to do was call our families and tell them that we were there, and we were safe, and that we'd made it.

Richard Stephenson
Yeah, it was a strange day I think looking back on it – that kind of slow, build up knowing that you're, certainly for me, there was always this sense, you know, what if something goes wrong at the last minute? What if we have one final bit of crucial equipment that breaks? What if, you know, one of us suddenly just does something catastrophic, and falls and twists ankle or breaks ankle or something just right at the last minute?

But once you're getting as Gareth says, within sort of 10 kilometres of the Pole, there's those tracks, you can start to see just a silvery tint on the horizon of some of the buildings and some of the scientific loaded, big radar stations and things there start to pop their heads above the horizon – suddenly, you think, you know what, I think we're actually going to do it, you know, I think we're actually going to pull this off, and you get that kind of huge sense of relief. And then in Antarctica you can see for enormous distances, because the air is so clear, so you can see where you're going, it doesn't appear to be getting much closer for hours and hours as you cover these last few distances.

And then I remembered there's a slight difference at the south pole between the Ceremonial Pole that everybody recognises, which is that kind of Barber's pole with the reflective globe on top of, and the actual and that stays where it is. But of course, the South Pole is over kilometres and kilometres of ice, which are moving. So, we went straight past, the Ceremonial Pole moved on totally ignoring it, just determined to cover those last few 100 metres until we finally got to this sort of quite underwhelming stick in the ground. That is the true, true South Pole. And I think actually, I think the first thing that we did was give each other a bit of a hug. To be honest, I'll be honest with you, we both had a little bit of a cry. It was a pretty emotional moment, and the combination of a lifetime of dreams and three years of very, very intense hard work and 66 days of extreme physical effort, and it all kind of came boiling to the surface.

Rebecca Archer
I can only imagine – that would have been incredible! I bet it's something you'll never forget as long as you live. Now I'm sure we've all got a fairly similar picture of what the landscape is like in Antarctica – lots of ice, lots of snow – but was there anything else that really stood out to you? Anything that you could describe to us that we might find surprising?

Gareth Andrews
The landscape actually was quite variable. We started on the varied coast – so from our start point, we were looking out across the Weddell Sea and the icebergs of the Weddell Sea, and then we spent three weeks on a – pretty much – a barren plateau across Berkner Island. But then we got down onto the Ronne-Filchner Ice Shelf as we crossed towards the, you know, the mainland continent of Antarctica. And the Ronne Ice Shelf sort of goes in very gentle, gentle waves, and as Rich said, you can see, for hundreds of kilometres in Antarctica, and with a number of days to go before reaching the mainland, we could see the mountains in the distance and they just, they just got closer and closer. And for a good part of the expedition, we were travelling through the Pensacola Mountains past the Forrestal Range and the Neptune Range. And they're incredibly beautiful.

You know, the crux of the trip was going up through the Wu Jack Ridge, which is a very, very steep ridge that forms essentially a gateway to the Antarctic Plateau and the South Pole. So, as we made our way up the ridge and through the mountains, it was incredibly beautiful, and we had some great clear days that we could enjoy that. But once you're out onto the Antarctic Plateau itself, we just basically saw for weeks and weeks on end, and hundreds and hundreds of kilometres, just fields of sastrugi, which are these very sharp ice waves that make travelling very, very difficult. And so, although quite beautiful, it's actually just mentally soul destroying knowing that you have to cover such great, great distances in such difficult terrain.

Richard Stephenson
You know, I think the sastrugi is quite difficult to describe to people and certainly – there’s some quite good photos up on our website of them, and they were absolutely the dominant sort of terrain feature of the expedition. We knew that the route that we would do would be relatively prone to sastrugi. As Gareth says, these ice ridges that form, they change over a scale of months or years and then these very hard ridges of snow and ice. They can be anything from a few centimetres tall, up to, you know, certainly the largest resource would be the size of a small house. There's a sort of, what you call, a circum-polar band of them at around the kind of 86 to 88 degrees south. So, they're a well-known phenomenon where people often encounter them in Antarctica. And we knew that because of the topographic conditions on our route, we would probably have at least 200 kilometres of sastrugi.

But as it turned out, it had been a very heavy snowfall winter with some really extreme winds, and actually, that was why we were slow getting into Antarctica in the first place because of the sheer volume of snow that was deposited over the winter at the Union Glazier Camp, that was our stepping stone on into the start of the expedition. And it took them a week to clear snow off the runway, so our plane could get in. That same snow it meant that they built up abnormal amounts of sastrugi throughout Antarctica, and particularly on the route that we are on.

So instead of 200 kilometres of sastrugi, we had 400 kilometres of sastrugi – absolutely solid. And when I say solid, I mean, for the vast majority of those 400 kilometres, there was no point at which there was even a skis with the flat ground. For the vast majority of that time, your skis were teetering on ridges of ice. You know, you'd maybe have your skis balancing over three or four different ridges, your sled would be teetering on a bunch of other ridges, or perhaps down in a trough between bridges behind you. And as you can imagine, the sleds, which we started off with were 165 kilograms split between two sleds, we consolidated those down to a single slide as we passed through the sastrugi to give us a little bit of a bit of mobility and a bit of ability to manoeuvre as much as you can. But there was still, you know, 100 plus kilo sleds.

So every couple of steps, you would have to be leaning as much as you possibly could forward to putting maximal effort in and pressure through your legs to get your sled to come up over a ridge, when it would drop down into the trough behind that. You, who would be balancing on a couple of other ridges at the front, was suddenly jerked forwards and drop down into the trough and perhaps hit another ridge in front of you. So, it's an incredibly awkward, difficult way of travelling and sort of alternating between maximum maximal effort and then suddenly jerking forwards and crashing into something else behind you. And so doing that nonstop day after day for 400 kilometres was incredibly challenging. And you could stand on these larger sastrugi, and you can just see in front of you, could see for, you know, until the curve of the horizon took the world away from you, you could just see more and more and more sastrugi panning out in front of you. And that was psychologically, as much as anything, difficult to deal with because you could just see what you're in for – for the rest of the day or the next day, and probably for, as it turned out, several weeks ahead of you – just more and more sastrugi.

Gareth Andrews
One last thing on that is, you know, then we had days in this sastrugi where we couldn't see anything at all. So, it was just like – so we had whiteout days where you ski through, you know, blizzarding snow and a cloud, essentially. So, you can't discern the horizon, you don't know where the sky and the snow meet, and you don't essentially know what's under your feet. So, you sort of battle on through this stuff – going incredibly slowly because you can fall, as Rich was saying, you can fall off the edge of these things and either break a piece of critical equipment like your ski or sled, which would be expedition ending, or you could fall and easily break a leg. So, the conditions were extremely challenging. And when you think about, you know what you can see, you know, there were many days where we could, we could just see each other basically, and that's it.

Richard Stephenson
And if you were the first – if you're the person that fronts, you could see absolutely nothing at all. And often you’d only know where a sastrugi was because your skis would hit it out in front of you or you'd be teetering on the top of one and you'd fall off the other side of it. Whereas if you were behind, the only thing and this sort of just white blank, canvas of the world ahead of you would be the person in front of you. And for me, I became incredibly familiar with the Grant Thornton logo, which is on the back of Gareth’s rear-most sled. So, I spent of that – and we used to take it in turns – so we did exactly half leading and half following through the whole expedition. So, of those 1,400 kilometres, I spent 730 kilometres staring at the Grant Thornton logos. So, I became extremely fond of it because it meant Gareth was in front doing all the hard work.

Rebecca Archer
What a great way to advertise the organisation too! I wonder, it’s sounding incredibly treacherous and difficult, and the fact that your visibility would have been sort of so reduced on certain days, did you actually get a chance to spot any penguins or other animals? I mean, you get a sense of Antarctica I guess from documentaries as being this vast, very clear vista with little black dotted penguins waddling in the distance, but is that really just not the case?

Gareth Andrews
We so we started, as I said, right on the coast and in amongst an emperor penguin colony. So, we were incredibly privileged just to wander around with the penguins for a few hours before we started our expedition and they're just incredible, incredible birds and they have no fear of humans. They just kind of wander around kind come up and say hello and then wander off back in the direction of either the colony or, or the sea. And then after that, once you get away from the coast, Antarctica is the world's largest desert, there's nothing – it can't sustain any life once you get away from the coastline.

So, you know, for the vast majority of the expedition, we didn't see any other living things apart from ourselves. Apart from when we got about 300 kilometres away from the coast, just as we were coming down off Berkner Island, a snow petrol turned up. So, snow petrols are about the size of a seagull. They're perfectly, perfectly snow white with black bills and black feet. And it kind of flitted out over the horizon and came and flew around us for a few minutes and sat in the snow. And we gave it some crumbs to eat and things, and I think it was as surprised to see us, as we were it. And then once after that we didn't see another living thing until we got to the South Pole.

Richard Stephenson
Even the ranges of mountains that we traversed, particularly as we went up through the Wu Jack Ridge that that Gareth mentioned before, we were right next to exposed rock there, and there's nothing on it. There’s not even lichen, there's no soil, there's nothing. It's just sort of rock that's just kind of crumbling, you know, to bits over eons under the assault of the cold and the wind. And there's not even lichen on the rocks there because the environment is just so incredibly dry.

Rebecca Archer
Can you tell us a bit about the process of collecting climate data, which is of course, was one of the things that was instrumental about this trip?

Richard Stephenson
Yeah, look for us, it was a really interesting part of the trip. And for us, it was something that was really important for us to do, you know, we're both passionate climate advocates. And we both very much feel that climate change is the is the greatest existential threat to all of us and Antarctica – being this incredibly pristine, incredibly remote environment, it's also very fragile. And it really acts as a kind of barometer, if you will, of the global climate, both in terms of where you see some of the changes caused by warming, but also providing some really important information and data. And so, for us, it was really important if we were going to go to Antarctica and experience this incredible wilderness -which is an enormous privilege – was important for us to give back to that kind of scientific community and feel that we were doing something that also aided both in the global fight against climate change, but also in our sort of understanding of Antarctica.

So, we were working with some scientists at the University of Hobart who work with the Australian Antarctic Division, and we started conversation with them quite early about what could we contribute, you know, what are two guys who were very limited in what equipment we could carry, because, you know, weight obviously, is incredibly important, times really difficult. We can't be spending lots of time making scientific measurements – was there really anything that we could add? But we were really pleasantly surprised that the scientists were genuinely excited about what we could provide to them, because so much of the stuff, or the data that was gathered in and on Antarctica is either done at specific scientific research stations, which only cover tiny areas of what's a vast continent, or they’re done through remote sensing satellites collect a lot of data. But a lot of the time there, they're actually using modelling to collect the actual numbers and the actual data and all that modelling needs calibration to make sure that it's accurate. And there's nothing quite like actual boots on the ground field measurements at the level of the ice to help calibrate those models. And so that's something really unique that we could contribute to that scientific dataset.

So, throughout the whole expedition, what we tried to do was to collect the most beneficial amounts of data and science, whilst also balancing that with the need that we had to have as lightest legs as possible to move as efficiently as possible. And so, we had very specialist select instruments with us that were essentially monitoring certain parameters continuously through the expeditions. So, we had devices specifically for monitoring temperature, we had devices specifically for monitoring barometric pressure, and devices that measure a larger suite of climatic data and, and they were measuring they were taking, I think the sort of resolution of the data on some of those devices was as often as every 10 minutes for the entire expedition. So, we collected well over 150,000 single data points of information through that expedition that is being essentially every 10 minutes for multiple parameters for all 166 days of the expedition, which is really quite amazing, and it's fantastic that we could get hold of the technology to enable us to do that.

So, all of that information has now been downloaded into some pretty epic looking spreadsheets and that's all gone off to the scientists at the University of Hobart, and hopefully, that'll provide them with some genuinely useful data to help inform their knowledge and their modelling.

Rebecca Archer
You have talked about the challenges of traversing the landscape there and the sastrugi and how treacherous that was to try and cross. I'm sure there must have been some very, very tough moments for both of you. Was there anything in particular that stood out that you would like to talk about, and what gave you the drive to keep on going?

Gareth Andrews
For me, Christmas Day was the hardest day. It stands out because it was our third day sastrugi. We were at about around 84 south. So, we still had a long way to go to the South Pole – well over 600 kilometres to go to the South Pole. And like I said, we were our third day in the sastrugi, it took us 10 hours to do our daily distance of 22 kilometres, which is, you know, at least two hours longer than it normally, it would normally take us. It was the first day that we were really, all we could see for as far as the horizon was the sastrugi and I just remember sitting in a tent, feeling completely physically exhausted, and thinking. It was almost the realisation that if this continues all the way to 88 south, all the way to the South Pole, in fact, 600 kilometres away, and the chances of us making the crossing, almost gone at that point. And it was then that it was probably my lowest point, because, you know, dealing with the disappointment of potentially not making the crossing, but then also just having to pick yourself up again, and realising that, you know, just getting to the side pole is going to be a massive achievement in the in these conditions – and that's not guaranteed.

And then also realising that in this kind of terrain, you're on your own. They can't land a plane anywhere close to you, because you can't land a plane with skis on the bottom of it in the sastrugi terrain. So, there was a feeling of massive isolation, and you know, and then the feeling that it was all down to us, to get ourselves out of there. Yeah, it was a big day for both of us, I think.

Richard Stephenson
Yeah, I would agree with that. I think, you know, I certainly found the early stages of the expedition quite challenging psychologically, just purely because of the great stretches of time, and distance that stood between us and our goal, and just realising quite how long it was going to be until we could see sort of family and loved ones again. That was quite difficult that, you know, I would agree with Gareth, I think, you know, Christmas Day, it was supposed to be a day of celebration, we've taken some treats with us, we had a bit of extra chocolate stuff, we had a bit of whiskey for us to have, I think we even had some “Happy Christmas” balloons and things with us.

But actually, it was the level of physical exhaustion by the time we got the tent up in the evening. And that realisation because we‘d hit these sastrugi, you know, essentially 200 kilometres earlier than we were expecting to hit them. Meaning that we probably knew we were in for double the length of time that we will be in the sastrugi than we were expecting. And we were expecting creating that dual sense that you know, essentially at that point, the crossing was nigh on impossible.

But also, that actually just reaching the South Pole might not happen, you know that this is huge scope for just not being able to physically cover the distance that was required because it was still pretty significant. But also the scope for stuff going wrong. You know, the hammering that our gear was taking in those sastrugi, you know, just after three days, just that smashing of your harness, the smashing of your sleds, the smashing of your skis are not you know, things that are relatively delicate, like ski bindings are getting an absolute hammering and just wondering if all of that stuff's going to survive. And actually, you know, we're 200 kilometres into the sastrugi, and we break some critical piece of equipment while we're still probably 200 kilometres from rescue as well. And we're going to have to try and get ourselves out of that even to a point where we could be safely rescued, nevermind, succeed in our goals. You know, all of that really came to a head on Christmas Day with all of the missing your family feeling away from home and our kids – knowing that our kids would be at home, opening their Christmas presents and getting really excited, and there was us sitting in our tent sort of absolutely broken and exhausted. It was, I would agree with Gareth, I think that was that was a really challenging low point.

Rebecca Archer
I certainly don't think you'll take any Christmas days with family for granted in the future after that experience. Richard, I need to ask you – did you finally buy a new spoon? In all seriousness, how do you deal with things not going to plan like your only spoon breaking?

Richard Stephenson
You know, I think of all of the stuff that I've had conversations with about everybody who has been following us on our trip, including my family, the spoon is the thing that everybody remembers. And I got a message from my partner, Gareth’s Sister, you know, on the day via satellite messaging system, and she was like, “Rich, what are you doing? How did you not take a metal spoon with you?” And it's, you know, it was in some ways it was kind of funny because in all honesty, it was a right pain, not having a working spoon for I don’t know, I think it was about two thirds of the trip in the end because you take these things for granted and you think wow, actually, you know, how am I genuinely going to get the food into my mouth if I can't rig up some form of temporary spoon and we were thinking we’d probably ended up having to use the snow pegs that were anchoring our tent down because at least they're kind of shovel shaped. You can shovel food into your mouth is one of those but the idea of doing that for, you know, 40 odd days was a little bit that miserable. [25.07] But as it turned out, we could kind of rig something together, but I guess it's a bit of a metaphor for how you have to survive and cope out of there, you know, you've just got to repair things, you’ve got to mend things, you've got to improvise.

And that's actually one of the really fun things about polar exploring is that sense, I think it's something that Gareth and I both enjoy is that sense that you have to – part surviving in the wilderness is having to cope, use your skills, your knowledge, your initiative to, to fix and repair stuff, but there's only so much of that you can do, and certainly, it also shows how incredibly important every single detail of your equipment is on an expedition into such an isolated part of the world. And I'll be honest, I just didn't even think about my spoon. It's the same spoon that I've been using for 10 years on all the trips I've done, it's been to the Magnetic North Pole, it's come across Iceland with me, it's been up countless mountains and rivers in New Zealand and all sorts of stuff. And it's been totally fine. So, I just stuck it in my bag and didn't think any more anything more of it. Of course, in hindsight, I think it's something I probably should have realised how important it was.

So, you know, from my perspective, it just goes to show how much detail, how careful you have to be with your planning. In terms of other bits of equipment, we ended up skating pretty close to the line with our ski bindings as well. You know, we had the hammering that they got in the sastrugi, meant that well I – unfortunately none of this I can blame on Gareth – managed to break three of our four spare sets of ski bindings. And so, if we'd broken anything else, we would have been in real trouble and probably not been able to finish the expedition. But we managed to, with a bit of improvisation, managed to get out of a fairly significantly injured ski bindings, limping on and managed to make it to the South Pole – but it was a pretty near run thing. And I think that's a testament to how long we're out there – the toughness of the conditions, and how important it is to make sure you've got exactly the right equipment with you when you start.

Rebecca Archer
What about illnesses and injuries. I mean, you can improvise, you know, not being able to use your favourite loyal, trusty plastic spoon. But it's not always as easy to try to get around injuries and sickness while you're on a trek like this. Anything like that come up for you?

Gareth Andrews
Yeah, absolutely. I think that, I suppose being doctors help massively in terms of us getting to the South Pole, because you got to think we're out there for 66 days, and common things happen. You're going to get blisters, you're going to get musculoskeletal injuries, you're probably going to need, you know, antibiotics at some point, and it's how much of all these things you take with you. So, you're most likely to get blisters on the first couple of days in the trip because sleds are the heaviest, you're doing a new movement, but we did a whole tonne of training. But you know, you can only train for dragging a heavy sled through snow once you get into some snow. Our last time was up in Svalbard and then you're into it in Antarctica. So, we both got blisters quite early on. And you know, the thing with blisters is you know, making sure that they don't get infected basically, because that's the thing that's going to pose you most issues, you know, skin infections and those sorts of things. But you've only got a limited amount of supplies. So, you can't be dressing and changing these blisters or, or even your musculoskeletal injuries with the strapping tape, you can't be changing them every day because you just don't have enough supplies.

So, a lot of what we were doing was just trying to stretch our supplies out for the amount of time that we were out there. But I think the advantage that we had was that we were able to spot things early, get on top of them and sort them out before they became real problems. So, things like blisters and things like you know, just very mild chest infections. And they can escalate into expedition ending medical conditions very quickly. And by spotting them early and helping each other through them, I think it really helped. And there's this phenomenon that you only really get in Antarctica called “polar thigh”, and the pathology is not really well understood. But essentially, it's a cold injury to the skin on most commonly on your thighs where the skin gets very, very cold. And then in combination with the friction of your clothing. So, when you're treking for hours and hours and hours a day, essentially the skin starts to break down [29.14]. It starts off as very itchy red spots, and then breaks down into ulcers essentially, and can be very, very bad. And both of us had the startings of “polar thigh”.

And it was certainly one of the things that could have ended our expedition very quickly. But we were able to spot it, treat it and then manage it for the rest of the expedition without it getting worse, and I think it really illustrates, you know, the benefits of us both being doctors and us having experienced these things, and being in those environments before.

Rebecca Archer
The first time we spoke, you detailed what the kinds of things were that you really miss on these sorts of expeditions where you're away for a period of time. I'm wondering what little luxury Did you really enjoy first, when you got back home?

Richard Stephenson
I remember when we were speaking before, and I was quite concerned about my lack of being able to drink tea for the course of the expedition, which is one of my great pleasures in life. I certainly did miss it. It's funny, actually, it's the thing, I was looking forward to most of having a really good brew when I got off the ice. But when we got into Chile, at the end of the expedition, we had a bit of time there sort of built into the journey for various logistical reasons and a bit of recovery. But Chile universally uses UHT milk, and not what I would consider proper milk. And so, it was a period of 10 days out of the expedition in civilization with fantastic quality tea, I was having to add this disgusting milk to it – and it was real disappointment. So I had to wait till I got back to New Zealand before I had proper coffee and a proper cup of tea. So, but that was something I look forward to through for the whole expedition.

Gareth Andrews
And for me, you know, the thing that I look forward to most the whole expedition was, was taking the kids swimming, it was just one of those things that just kept me going. And I just thought, and did, as soon as we got back to Chile, the kids were there, and we went swimming. And it was it was really nice. I didn't expect it to be that – I thought it was always going to be a burger and chips and a milkshake. But it was the kids that I looked forward to seeing the most.

Richard Stephenson
And obviously, in all honesty, obviously the tea was a little luxury. But, you know, I spent we had that one thing you do find when you're skiing along in Antarctica is you have an awful lot of time to just think; you have a lot of time in your own head. And, you know, I almost just started to create, you know, scenarios and kind of, you know, fantasies of just normal life. You know, I didn't miss doing exciting things. I didn't miss doing sort of special stuff. I just missed normal, mundane life with my family. And you know, like with Gareth, taking the kids swimming, I spent a lot of time just thinking about that moment that I was going to see my kids again, I knew they'd be going to meet me at the airport in Dunedin, New Zealand, I know what the airport looks like, I knew where they’d be standing when I got off the plane. And I imagined that moment over and over again, in my head, a lot of the expedition. And so, you know, when I finally got home after, you know, a chunk of time in Chile, and then travelling around again and finally landed on the plane in Dunedin, it was pretty special. There's that scenario that I've been imagining in my head kind of played out in real life. And it was, you know, every bit as wonderful as I was expecting it to be.

Rebecca Archer
That's really beautiful, and of course, everyone back home was so invested in your journey. Other explorers may be wanting to attempt the same trek and have the support that you both did, what advice would you give to them?

Gareth Andrews
Surround yourself with positive, likeminded people and stick with it. The support that we have had from Grant Thornton, in particular, and our other sponsors and our friends and our families has made a massive difference. The three years that we were really planning this particular expedition, it was a real roller coaster, it was a roller coaster of emotion, and we really needed the support. And Rich and I are the guys on the ice, but there’s my wife Andrea, who was our Team Manager, there's Mark, who is our Expedition Chairman, and every, every step of the way, is just all positive. And it's something that we really have to be so thankful to Grant Thornton for. You know, and when we were on the ice, we knew that GT was sending out updates across, you know, across the country, and it really kept us going.

Richard Stephenson
I found that side of stuff made it made a really big difference actually going, you know, when we're out there knowing that this is huge numbers of people out there, both with GT and particularly with Scouts as well, whether it's huge numbers of Scouts across Australia, New Zealand, you know, following us on our journey, it was a huge motivating factor as well, you know. It felt that there's this whole community of people behind us even though you know, very occasionally we'd managed to get some messages we would get through on the SAT phone or belter to send through so we could read some of the support, but just knowing it was there, was really important. And I think trying to stay positive all through that build up. And then when you're out on the ice. There's no such thing as an easy major Antarctic Expedition. You know, the whole process of trying to get the sponsors and the money on board and all the planning is an enormous undertaking, and I don't think I've ever heard of an expedition that it's not come down to the wire, and not been really difficult.

And so that process is huge amounts of highs and lows, even just getting onto the ice. And then of course when you're there, by far the single most important factor in determining your success is your mental resilience. And so having that community behind us that wider community that's just on top of all of our family and friends was enormously important. So as Gareth says, just trying to stay positive in the face of what often times both pre and on the ice itself feels like everything is against you.

Rebecca Archer
What's next for the two of you? I imagine it's fairly hard to top what you've just achieved. So how can you put anything on the table that even comes close, or do you not want to?

Gareth Andrews
Rich and I both have a list of a quite a long list of things that we want to do in the future. We'd love to, we'd love to get back to Antarctic; there's plenty to be explored, and it's such an incredible place. We would love to spend the next year or the years to come teaching our kids to follow in our footsteps, take them on expeditions, and also to continue our work with the Scouts. We're talking to them at the moment about putting together a Scout’s expedition to the South Pole in the next few years.

So, I think our role as Scouts ambassadors across Australia and New Zealand has been so very important to inspire the next generation of, of young leaders and young adventurers to go forward and do great things and also to do great things in terms of looking after our planet into the into the future. So hopefully lots of exciting stuff in the years to come.

Richard Stephenson
Absolutely. And I think in the meantime, I've got quite a long list of chores that I need to get through. I've certainly got a little bit of catching up to do – it’s going to be my job to clean out the fish tank and take the dog for a walk for quite a few months yet before I'm allowed off on my next adventure.

Rebecca Archer
Well, Gareth and Richard, thank you so much for your time and congratulations again to you both, Bob the Grant Thornton named sled and the whole of the Antarctica 2023 team on your amazing achievement. We're looking forward to speaking to you in person across some of the Grant Thornton Australia offices, of course, but until then, how can we continue to follow your future journeys? What's the best way for people to find you?

Gareth Andrews
Through our social media and our website – they’ll still be running. So, it's https://antarctica2023.com.au. And everything will go through there and you can get in touch with us through both those channels as well.

Richard Stephenson
And yeah, and keep an eye on our website – we’ve got some really good photos to share and some more images and pictures to come. So we'll be getting out there, hose out there over the next few weeks as soon as we can.

Rebecca Archer
If you liked this podcast and would like to hear more remarkable stories you can find like and subscribe to The Remarkables podcast by Grant Thornton Australia, on Apple podcasts or Spotify. Leave us a review or ideas on who you'd like to hear from next. I'm Rebecca Archer, thank you for listening