A pair of soldiers who were part of the first all-female group to cross Antarctica by muscle power alone visited an Aberdeen girl’s school this week to inspire young pupils.
The British Army’s Ice Maiden expedition challenged six women to spend 62 days on the ice and involved skiing 373 miles across uneven ground.
The team completed the task in January and now the group’s leader Major Nics Wetherill, 32, and Lance Sergeant Sophie Montagne, 34, are touring schools across the country to speak to pupils.
Together, the soldiers travelled up to 27 miles a day and pulled along sledges weighing up to 176 pound in temperatures as low as -50C.
On Wednesday the two adventurers met with youngsters at St Margaret’s School for Girls.
Major Wetherill said: “The children were brilliant. They asked us all sorts of questions about how we managed to motivate ourselves, how we handled the more difficult days and, of course, what animals we saw.
“The longevity of the expedition created a lot of mental pressure, because it was doing the same thing over and over again for more than 60 days. It was very difficult to keep the team motivated.
“The St Margaret’s pupils were a really confident group – some of them are planning an expedition to Namibia and Botswana.
“It’s amazing that they’re thinking about these experiences at such a young age.
“For a lot of girls in schools there tends to be a lack of confidence.
“Perhaps when you have people like us who can come in and tell them it wasn’t that long ago we thought we were very ordinary women who could never do anything extraordinary, but we then set ourselves this goal and achieved it, hopefully we can inspire some young minds.”