Two Australian adventurers who made history by kayaking unassisted to New Zealand set off yesterday hoping to bag a new record by walking from the Antarctic coast to the South Pole and back.
Justin Jones, 28, and James Castrission, 29, have each piled on 20kg and undergone months of intensive training for the 2,220km polar trek across some of the harshest terrain on Earth.
The pair will haul 160kg each of gear and supplies on sleds during their three-month journey, as they attempt to complete the world’s first unsupported return journey from the Antarctic coast to the South Pole.
PHOTO: AFP
The adventurers are familiar with extremes, having battled giant seas, sickness, sharks and food shortages during their 62-day world record kayak crossing of the Tasman Sea in 2007 and 2008, a 3,300km journey.
Jones said the cold would be their biggest challenge, something they had braced for at a training camp in the Arctic earlier this year.
“[It’s] so cold that your breath freezes in front of your face, you get ice forming in your sleeping bag, it’s intensely cold,” he told reporters at Sydney Airport ahead of their departure for South America, where they will meet a Russian cargo flight bound for Antarctica.
Dried meat, nuts and powdered meals will be their fuel, and they aim to consume 6,000 calories a day, about triple the recommended daily average.
“That’s 15 Big Macs of food worth a day, and we’re still expected to lose a tonne of weight — we’re expecting 20-30 kilos each,” Castrission said.
The psychological challenge would also be immense, he added, with their long-standing friendship likely to be tested at times.
“Spending three months out on the ice with your best mate, you’re going to get the occasional tiff,” he said. “But fortunately we’ve seen each other at our best and worst and we can work through it most of the time.”
Castrission’s mother, Vivienne, said the two men were well prepared and “they know what they are in for,” adding that she was much calmer than before the Tasman kayaking trip.
“We didn’t try to stop them this time, this is what they’re going to do,” she said.
Jones admitted it was “tough” on their families “but they’re proud of us and they’re supporting us,” he said.
Aiming to raise money for a children’s cancer charity, the expedition will officially begin at Antarctica’s Union Glacier Camp on Oct. 16. The pair will document their journey with photographs, video blogs and via social media sites.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
The death toll from a shooting in western Afghanistan rose to 11 on Saturday, after gunmen targeted civilians at a picnic spot in Herat, the provincial authority said. Bullet marks were visible on a wall of the Sayed Mohammad Agha Shia shrine, while bloodstains marked a blanket abandoned at the scene. “Eleven people have been recorded dead and eight others wounded from Friday’s incident, with the condition of two of the wounded reported as critical,” Herat’s information office said in a statement. The update raises a toll of seven killed provided on Friday by the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs
RSS