"Eat, ski, sleep, repeat."
Bob has led an amazing life that even the most adventurous of us can only dream of. He did not have much of an outdoor education at school (too naughty to be allowed) but after a course at Outward Bound, he developed a taste for adventure and has lived his dream. He has climbed Mt Everest from the China side, completed the "Seven Summits" - one in each continent, and been on five expeditions in Antarctica.
His doctorate is in Outdoor Education and he has believed in, and worked with, outdoor education for young unemployed people. Tonight he spoke of his expedition to the South Pole, following Roald Amundsen's 1911 route. (Roald Amundsen, 1872 - 1928 is his personal hero, a key figure of the heroic age of exploration. He sailed his ship, the Fram, into the Arctic ice hoping to drift over the North Pole. When the embedded Fram drifted off course he left the Fram to go on foot, but then could not return to the Fram and had an incredible journey getting back to the mainland. He had many more adventures until he died in 1928 while flying to rescue an explorer from a crashed dirigible airship near Spitsbergen).
Bob's route took 900kms and 40 days from the Ronne Ice Shelf to the South Pole and went through the Antarctic mountains. There were five in the party, four adventurers and a nominal guide. They had one food and fuel re-supply depot. With the help of excellent photographs Bob told us how they hauled 75kg sleds in conditions ranging normally from -10C to -20C but sometimes -45C. They had expected to ski for a few hours each day but the first day took thirteen hours.
Day after day they skied on, sometimes going up slopes so steep they had to zig zag, or even take just half the load and then come back for the second half. Some days they made just 5kms, some days they had to avoid 1000 ft crevasses and some days they spent in their tents in an arctic blizzard but eventually they grew close and could see the South Pole just fifteen km southwest of them. They had made it, they saw the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, now an American station with heated buildings and up to 300 residents. Nearby was a fifteen tent "glamping" camp where tourists can fly in, stay, and fly out for $75000, and a marker surrounded by the flags of the thirteen nations who signed the Antarctic Treaty.
In answers to questions Bob explained that he had paid for the trip himself, that as a very fit ironman contestant and marathon runner he had not needed special training for the trip, that the waste from the South Pole base is simply buried very deep in the 10,000 foot thick ice and that what he most looked forward to after it was over was a fresh egg. His next expedition is to Foxton Beach with his four year old son.
P.s. If you google Bob Maxwell New Zealand you will find his Personal Project - The Motivation of Antarctic Adventurers.