Episode 7 Blue Peter

I kayaked 2,000 miles along the Amazon...

..I walked a high wire

between the chimneys of Battersea power station...

'..and in December 2011,

'I embarked on my most demanding expedition to date -

'a 500-mile trek to the South Pole

'by kite, by ski and, in a world first, by bike.'

My legs. Ow!

'It was most the incredible journey of my life and this is my story.'

'Coming up in today's programme....

'I land myself in trouble with my team-mates...'

-Helen!

-What?

-Don't care about the camera.

'Good conditions give us a chance

'to set a new kite-skiing world record...'

You've got 13 miles, or 20km, to go

and you and Niklas could potentially set a new world record.

'..and the demands of Antarctica are taking their toll on my body.'

This orangey-looking liquid is actually my wee,

and that means that I'm dehydrated and I'm not drinking enough.

'I'm hoping to reach the South Pole

'with my Norwegian team-mate, Niklas, in just 20 days.

'But we've got our work cut out if we want to reach the pole in time.

'On day one, we underestimated

'just how hard using the ice bikes would be.'

I feel like we've been going all day. It is exhausting.

'Progress was slow.

'We covered 15 miles in nine hours,

'failing to make our 25-mile-a-day target.

'This means we're already behind schedule.

Why don't I think these things through?

'But today, we've got a chance to make up the miles.'

-WIND ROARS

-It's day two and the wind is strong,

as you can see, so we are going to try and kite

and make up the mileage that we lost yesterday.

If you hear Niklas shouting, "Keep the sail in the air!

"Higher in the air!" That means, "Slow down, Skelton."

It will be important for me to calm her down.

She can easily twist her knee or hurt her back when falling.

Stay low, go fast.

'All those months of training

'are about to be put to the test for real.

'I can't wait to get the kite in the air and make the miles count

'towards my 500-mile journey to the South Pole.'

There's something so rewarding about this.

You know, you're moving forward at a pace,

not using an engine, not using any petrol.

I can see why the Norwegian prefers this to cycling.

'Ahead of me is the polar plateau,

'a vast ice desert first sighted by Captain Scott in 1903.'

'There are no landmarks and no life can exist here.

'Even breathing is harder, as it's 3,000 metres above sea level.

'That's more than twice the height

'of the highest mountain in the UK - Ben Nevis.'

'Although I'm enjoying it,

'I'm still very much a learner when it comes to this form of transport.'

It is nerve-wracking, though.

I'm trying to keep one eye on the sastrugi

because the ice is quite hard here. Oh, a bumpy bit of snow.

Ah!

Argh!

Oh, come on, stay in the air, stay in the air.

Oh...

Urgh. You see?

You have to concentrate all the time, otherwise...

See if you don't concentrate, you get into a bit of a pickle.

Well, now I'm in a tangle, aren't I?

'Oh, well. We've still managed to cover 16 miles in two hours,

'which is a big improvement on day one.'

You could do this for hours and hours, whereas the bike?

Nine hours, yesterday, floored us.

OK. 1-0 to the Norwegian.

He was right, this is definitely more efficient.

'This will make Niklas very happy.

'After his first day struggling on the bike, he's not its biggest fan.'

Niklas? You love that bike, don't you?

I hate the bike. THEY LAUGH

'As we get in our final miles of the day,

'I really feel like we're starting to achieve what we set out to do.

'We've travelled 41 miles, more than our daily target,

'and we're back on track for the South Pole.'

'All I want to do now is climb into my tent

'and have something hot to eat, but it's not quite that simple.

'From start to finish, my tent routine takes three hours

'every single night, and I'm still adjusting to life in the Antarctic.'

You're not supposed to get any snow in your tent,

because if you do then it melts and then you get water in your tent

and then you get cold, blah, blah, blah.

I mean, it is chaos. It is literally chaos in here.

What are these?

A-ha!

-STOVE ROARS

-Come on, blue flame.

I took it upon myself

to be the cook for Niklas and I.

I thought that was one of the few things

that I could bring to the table.

So, it's my job to boil enough water for both of our dinners at night.

I'm actually having muesli tonight and Niklas will tell me off

cos it's not proper, but I just can't eat curried rice.

'Even though we're in separate tents,

'Niklas has still found a way to keep an eye on me.'

Niklas has written a list of things that I should do if I get cold.

I'm going to get in all kinds of trouble when I give this tent back.

'It's another perfect day for kiting, with 447 miles to go.

'It's such a privilege to be travelling across

'this bleak but beautiful landscape. I can't help thinking

'how brave Captain Scott and his men must have been,

'stepping into the unknown,

'in the hope of being the first to reach the South Pole.'

There are moments when I look right

and I just think, "Whoa. We are at the bottom of the world."

Fewer people have been to the South Pole than have been up Everest.

You look around and there's no-one.

And especially if I'm in front of Niklas

and I can see no-one and nothing.

And every now and again I can see the shadow of his kite

dancing around on the surface next to me, and that's quite reassuring.

'To stay warm and keep moving, we need to refuel regularly.

'But it's a real effort to eat and drink in temperatures of -21.'

This is all we eat in the day. Just bits of stuff out of this bag.

A few nuts, bits of chocolate, bits of dried fruit.

To be honest, we probably don't eat enough in the day because,

as you can see, it's a real hassle.

'Everything in this environment is a hundred times harder than normal.'

All I want is a drink.

Is this a laugh? Can someone please get it?

Oh, this is just...

doing my head in now.

This is ridiculous. It's only water.

And then you say, "Forget it."

Just forget it.

'And taking the top off my water bottle

'is nothing compared to actually getting the water to drink.'

So, if I want to eat or drink anything,

I have to melt and then boil snow,

because, obviously, we drink the water

and then we add the water to the food and that's how we eat.

I always have to put a little bit of water in the bottom of the pan,

because, believe it or not, the snow out here

is so dry you can actually burn snow

So, you put an inch of water in the bottom of the pan left

over from the day, and then add snow.

When you've finished, you just want to eat or drink something,

and you can't until you have boiling water.

It's weird, cos this place couldn't look and be

any more different from Sierra Leone,

yet, sitting here right now...

..it's making me realise how precious water is,

because it is such a hassle to get water to drink.

And that's true for the families that I visited

and the children that I've met. It's really making me realise

why you should get involved with Sport Relief, if you can.

There's only about a third of that pan full,

so you just have to keep adding snow.

'It takes me two hours to melt enough snow to make food

'and get drinking water for the evening and next day.

'This is the same time it takes children in Sierra Leone

'to find a well with water clean enough to drink.'

And so finally

my water is boiling. But at least now I can eat something.

'It's day four.

'The wind speed has dropped to eight miles per hour.

'The small kite sails won't work,

'so it's time to bring out the big kites.'

This is what I'm calling "the grown-ups' kite".

I finally like I can use the Ferrari I've had the keys to for weeks.

'But it comes with conditions.'

It's...not as easy for me to put down this kite and come and help you

if you get some tangling lines, or, just, any problems,

so I thought it may be better

to just start for an hour, or something,

where you're pulling both me and both sleds,

then after that hour we go on, uh, two kites.

-OK.

-Are you OK? SHE LAUGHS

HE CHUCKLES I know you hate that.

'And there was me thinking I'd proved my kite-skiing skills.'

I am basically a toddler.

Oh, it's... It's unbelievable.

If I don't get my own way, or get to do it by myself,

I take a bit of a huff.

She can't accept that she doesn't manage something straight away.

'One small strop later

'and I reluctantly set off, pulling Niklas behind me.'

And all the way, all the way, all the way.

All right.

You see... You see the point?

'After 15 minutes of nagging,

'Niklas agrees I can have a go on my own

'and it soon becomes clear why he was being cautious.

'These kites have 60-metre lines -

'that's more than twice the length of a normal swimming pool.

'They're much harder to control and progress is slow.

'We've travelled one mile in one hour.'

I would quite happily rip that kite up

and use it as a table cloth right now.

Niklas is going on about these kites

like they're God's gift to travel, yet...

SHE SIGHS

they're just really frustrating.

'I'm not having a good day.'

I need the loo, but, I mean...

There's no chance I'm going to start taking all this clobber off.

I'm not drinking anywhere near enough, I know I'm not.

But I'll tell you why. Because the zip's broken. These do my... Look.

My down mittens have gone all funny - all the down's gone to the ends

and I can't get the lid off my water bottle cos it's frozen on again.

'I've never experienced anything like Antarctica before.

'It's such an alien environment. Everything is more intense

'and it's easy to get upset by the simplest things.'

Come on, kite.

Just... Just get in the air.

Here we go, here we go!

No, don't you dare! Oh, it's upside down, so I need to flip it over.

I mean, I'm not the only one annoyed by this, am I?

Oh, this kite.

I mean, I am having a shocker today.

'Despite my bad mood,

'we've still managed our daily target of 25 miles'

I was really excited about getting out the big kites today.

I thought, "We're going to go fast, I'm going to look cool."

Neither of those things happened.

I'm sure I will learn to love the kites,

but I'm not entirely sure it's worth all the hassle.

'To make matters worse, my lack of drinking hasn't gone unnoticed

'and I've been asked by the medics to check my wee.'

This looks a bit like diluted orange cordial.

It is, in fact, my wee.

And that's a bad sign, that means that I'm dehydrated

and I'm not drinking enough, so I know I need to drink more,

and hopefully... I can't stop looking at it now.

It's awful, isn't it? It's definitely the wrong colour. So...

Don't worry, the lid's tightly screwed on...

I'm going to do my best over the next 24 hours

to drink loads of water,

hopefully in an effort to properly re-hydrate myself.

Then I'll be able to perform better, I will feel better

and my wee will be a different colour.

'After ten hours sleep and a lot of litres of water,

'I'm hoping things have improved.'

I made a determined effort last night to drink as much as possible

and I am delighted to report that this morning,

my wee looks like this. I now know if I drink more,

my body's going to perform better, I'm going to feel better,

so from now on I'll be keeping an eye on my wee.

'That's not the only thing I'll be keeping an eye on today.

'Overnight the clouds have come in

'and it's white as far as the eye can see.'

'This phenomenon is known as "flat light."

'In these conditions, it's difficult to tell the ground from the sky

'or to see the bumpy terrain.

'I'll have to concentrate hard to avoid an accident.'

It's weird. Even though it's all white from top to bottom,

I'm actually quite enjoying skiing in this flat light

because it's a little bit different. It's probably a bit more dangerous,

in that it's harder to see what you're skiing over,

but I'm feeling lucky at the minute

because the wind is so low, I'm keeping quite a low speed.

If I was going fast I'd be like, "Whoa!"

# Yeah, the night is alive You can feel your heartbeat

MUSIC: "All About Tonight" by Pixie Lott

# We've been working all week

# Tomorrow doesn't matter When you're moving your feet

-# It's all about tonight... #

-DRAMATIC CLANG

Your kite's there!

Oh, no!

'Unfortunately, I've been concentrating harder

'on singing and talking to the camera than what I'm doing.'

Look. The kite lines landed on the car.

Well, OK, I parked the kite and then I was talking to you lot

and I didn't realise that the kite took off again.

-Helen!

-What?

-Don't care about the camera!

Keep the braking lines tighter!

'If the 60m lines are tangled or the material tears,

'it could cause us long delays.'

Oh, no! Now I'm in serious trouble.

'The crew vehicles have to reverse and get out of the way

'so that Niklas can sort out the lines.'

Sorry, guys.

I have one eye on the kite all the time,

because if you don't, it can take off.

And because I was looking at the camera and talking to you,

I wasn't looking at the kite and it took off and then landed on the car.

So now I'm in trouble with Mr Norman.

Is it all good?

'Thankfully, it's OK...'

I hate this.

'..but Niklas is furious with me.'

It's just that we have to make sure the kites are secure

before we start talking to the camera crew.

You have to check the kite's secure before you talk to the camera.

Oh, no.

I'm going to have a mad Norwegian telling me off all day, now.

He's only letting me have this kite today

because I proved yesterday that I didn't fall over. Oh...

What's he doing?

'Niklas has to wrestle with my upside-down kite

'to get me back on track...'

OK, OK. Now we're straight.

No, now we're not straight...

'..which isn't helping him be any less cross with me.'

OK. Go, go, go, go. OK, I'm going to get out of everybody's way

before I annoy anyone.

Thank you!

Thank you, Niklas!

Oh, dear.

'It seems I've upset Niklas more than I realised,

'and when I stop because the wind has dropped,

'he carries on to camp on his own, leaving me to sort myself out.'

I don't really know what to say. Am I annoyed that Niklas has left me?

I won't be if, when I get there, he has the tent up and the kettle on.

I can't win really, can I?

I can't complain at him for leaving me and then

complain at everything, "Don't help me, I want to do it by myself!"

'Sometimes, I'm my own worst enemy.

'My determination to do things my way

'means I've got an angry team-mate on my hands

'and a long walk before camp.'

The trouble with being in Antarctica is

you don't know how far away anything is, cos it's just...

There's no landmarks.

So Niklas could be five miles away, he could be one mile away.

I'm hoping he's half a mile away.

I think I'll maybe just go straight forward for a bit.

'Walking back gives me time to think about how different Niklas and I are

'when it comes to dealing with life in Antarctica.'

He's, um...so clever, and so good at what he does,

and I've realised that I'm not a thinker.

I mean, I just don't think things through.

'Which is becoming very, very clear.'

I have a little bit of a confession.

I don't know how this has happened,

but I am really quickly running out of food.

Basically, we arrived 16 days ago.

We were given food to last us till the end of January.

However, I think I've split my bags wrong,

or put a bag in the wrong place, because on day five

I'm down to...

two packets of muesli...

and a curried rice.

'And one of those is my evening meal.

'I need to get to the halfway point quick and pick up new supplies,

'or I won't be getting the 6,000 calories a day I need

'for all the physical activity I'm doing.'

'It's day six,

'and it seems it's not just me who's been doing some thinking overnight.'

I have a bad habit of, uh,

always trying to...to find the reason for why we're doing something,

and, uh, I should probably just don't think and go with the flow.

But, uh, from now on I will try not to think

and just enjoy being in Antarctica.

'With Niklas back in a good mood, we put yesterday firmly behind us.

'The wind speed is good, so the kite sails are back out

'and in just three and a half hours, we make great progress.'

-WIND ROARS

-You can probably hear

that the wind is really strong,

which is great news for us, cos it means that we have done

more than our daily mileage target

and we're not even halfway through the day.

So far, today is going really well.

'And the miles just keep on coming.'

So, how many have we done now?

We have now done 80 kilometres in a very short time.

That's good, which is 50 miles,

and our trusty producer, Murray, informs us that we're on the verge

of a new world record, is that right?

That's right, and the Guinness Book Of Records say there isn't a record

for 100 kilometres skiing, that's around 63 miles,

so you've got 13 miles or 20 kilometres to go,

and you and Niklas could potentially set a new world record.

Well, why wouldn't we? Let's set a new word record. Come on.

We'll see you at the 100k mark.

That's exciting, isn't it? We love a world record at Blue Peter.

Woo-hoo!

'In just seven hours, 28 minutes, we've covered 100 kilometres,

'or 62 miles by kite ski, which is a brand-new, shiny world record!'

I think this record is actually quite good in this sastrugi.

-And with sledges.

-It is extremely heavy for your knees.

This'll go down as one of those days that you talk about,

when there's highlight.

After these things you only look back on the best bits,

and so far, I think, this has been my best bit.

'And to reward myself, I'm finally getting a wash - Antarctic style.'

I haven't washed my hair for 20 days.

But, the boys have worked out a way for me to wash my hair,

so I'm really excited.

This is a great moment, honestly.

Argh! It's minging!

'It's a very technical setup

'of a collapsible wash bag filled with hot water,

'but to me, it's better than any shower in the world.'

OK. This is me trying to wash my hair.

I'm dunking it.

Wait until you see the hairdryer.

HAIRDRYER WHINES

This may be a blowtorch - it's also a hairdryer.

You see, you've got to improvise in Antarctica.

The boys were so sick of me moaning about how disgusting I felt,

they said, "Right, wash your hair, we'll find you a hairdryer."

Icelandic mechanics have altered this so it's safe for me to use.

Do not use a blowtorch on your head!

'It's day seven. Today could be the day we reach the halfway point,

'250 miles from the South Pole.'

As you can see, it is not great, conditions-wise.

The sun isn't out, so the visibility isn't great,

and, if you look at the flag

fluttering on one of the trucks there, the Icelandic flag,

it's not going very fast, is it? Because there isn't much wind.

So, we've decided to use the bikes today.

Niklas is excited, I can tell.

And, yeah, hopefully we'll make it to the checkpoint. Come on.

It'll be worth it. It'll be hard, but it'll be worth it.

'We need to cycle 18 miles to get to the half way point -

'more than we've ever attempted on the bikes before.'

'After 4.5 miles, we're doing well

'but the physical effort of using the bikes means we're overheating,

'so it's coats off to cool down.'

Normally, I have an extra pair of trousers on and two extra jackets...

..but we're working up such a sweat on these bikes,

I've stripped down to my thermal layer.

I'm not supposed to be sweating, because when you stop,

that can lead to hypothermia, but from the smell of me,

I am losing that battle.

Come on, legs. Be strong.

'It's two o' clock in the afternoon before we stop for a break.'

So, 12 miles done, which means we've got about four or five to go?

So, this is good.

Two thirds of today's distance. >

And then we're at the halfway point.

'And of course, I can't wait to get there to pick up new food.'

This is all I have left,

so if we don't make it to the halfway point tonight...

..it's cashew nuts for dinner.

'But the good news is Niklas seems to be enjoying the bikes.'

Today I love the bikes,

because I think they are more efficient than kiting.

Well, that is all I needed to hear. Good.

That's going to make me smile for the rest of the day.

'There's two miles to go to the halfway point - and food!'

That was the longest two miles of my life,

but that's halfway.

LAUGHING: Halfway. So we shouldn't be exhausted?

No, not yet.

'We've done it, 18 miles on the bike

'and we're halfway to the South Pole.

'I'm tired and sore, but at least I'm not going to starve.'

We have new food today, so that means you have biltong.

That's how we can mark this halfway point.

A bit of dried, salted meat.

And that, uh, we made the bikes work for a full day.

Efficiently. That's also worth celebrating.

I'd happily retire tomorrow because you've just said that. Yes!

I don't want to think,

"Oh, tomorrow it'll be X number of miles," or whatever,

I just keep thinking,

"Tomorrow, get some mileage in, get some mileage done,

"get closer to the pole,"

and then, before you know it, fingers crossed, we'll be there.

'And if you've been inspired by my challenge,

'why don't you go the extra mile

'and get involved in Sport Relief this year?

'Get a grown-up and sign up to do the Sport Relief mile.

'There are hundreds of events around the country,

'and by raising money, you can help poor and vulnerable people

'in the UK and around the world

'Next time, we're still hundreds of miles from the South Pole

'when I take a risky decision which will push us to breaking point.'

It is time to say...

..goodbye to the kites.

My decision to ditch the kites upsets my team-mate...

Today, we have been moving at, like, 1.3 miles an hour

and that's way too slow.

..and pushing myself to prove the bikes work

begins to affect my health.

-SHE COUGHS

-If it gets worse,

this could, possibly, exclude you from finishing your race.

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