Two South Africans made history on Thursday when they became the first team to walk unsupported and unassisted to the South Pole.
”They did make it. It’s just divine,” Nadia Harris, wife of one of the pioneers, said after 6pm.
The expedition of Alex Harris and Sibusiso Vilane started in November last year.
It saw them covering almost 1 200km in temperatures ranging from eight degrees Celsius to about minus-40 degree.
Nadia, of Johannesburg, said she received a brief phone call confirming the pair’s feat.
”I can’t believe this day has finally come,” Alex wrote on his website journal late on Wednesday with about 15km to go.
Both men pulled sleds, weighing about 130kg, which carried their supplies during the journey.
They did it all themselves with no support teams putting out food or rigging up tents and not using wind power or sled dogs to get there.
”It’s the purest form of getting to the South Pole,” said Harris when they set off last year.
Vilane said reaching the South Pole was his personal ambition and he wanted to fulfil his personal goal and ”inspire other black Africans”.
The two are the veterans of various extreme adventures including climbing Mount Everest in 2003 and again in 2005.
They first met in 2003 and that is when both expressed their desire to explore Antarctica. — Sapa