Twizel adventurer Kylie Wakelin. Photo / Sarah Ivey Expand

Twizel adventurer Kylie Wakelin. Photo / Sarah Ivey

Twizel adventurer Kylie Wakelin today started her unexpected ski journey to the South Pole, towing an 80kg sled loaded with food, fuel and equipment.

Wakelin, 36, is part of a team of eight women who expect to take 40 days - skiing for six to 10 hours a day - to travel over 800km to the pole and mark the 60th anniversary of the Commonwealth: their next hot showers won't be until 2010.

She stepped in as New Zealand's representative in early October, after the expedition's British leader, Felicity Aston, axed a New Zealand Army doctor, Major Charmaine Tate, 33, who had trained with the international team in both Norway and New Zealand.

"A big part of my role as expedition leader is about people management - creating a good expedition team is all about getting the right mix of characters and someone who may be excellent as an individual or in other teams might not be right for this particular group of people," Ms Aston said in a statement.

"The team dynamics weren't quite right so I decided to change the personnel before the team got anywhere near the ice."

She said a "runner-up" from New Zealand was no longer able to join the expedition team "and so we found a new team member by referring back to the shortlist of New Zealand applicants who applied to join the team in 2008". The shortlist was drawn up from 200 applications.

The change was made after a training camp in the Pisa Range near Wanaka during September.

Maj Tate - who would have been the first New Zealand woman to make the "symbolic and prestigious journey" - had previously spent two weeks in Norway where the rest of the team was learning how to ski and survive in the cold.

Before being dropped, Maj Tate, who is originally from Auckland, said she was humbled to be selected.

Growing up in the New Zealand outdoors, climbing mountains and skiing, Maj Tate had an advantage over many of her teammates at the training camps, and said it had not been frustrating, so much as "really interesting to watch women who have never seen snow before learn how to ski, pull sledges and camp out".

She could not be contacted for comment today.

Ms Wakelin is still one of the more experienced members of the group, after spending the past 16 years running the Glacier Explorers boat trips in the small lake at the foot of the Tasman Glacier.

Ms Wakelin said her previous experience was "a lifetime of kicking about" in ski-touring and mountaineering expeditions in recent years to Norway, Greenland, Alaska, Kyrgyzstan and Russia, and working one season for the British Antarctic Survey on the frozen continent.

An "easy-going and social girl", she said she was a plane pilot, boat skipper and climber who enjoyed anything that required hands-on skills.

The expedition also comprises women from seven other Commonwealth countries, Brunei, Darussalam, Cyprus, Ghana, India, Jamaica, Singapore and Britain.

Ms Aston said she chose New Zealand over Australia because of its link with Antarctica.

"New Zealanders think of it as their next-door neighbour, which is why it's so surprising that there hasn't been a New Zealand woman who has skied to the South Pole," she said.

- NZPA