A JUBILANT former Bramhope woman telephoned the Wharfedale Observer this week direct from her tent at the end of her historic expedition to the South Pole.

Zoe Hudson, 32, told the Observer that there was one thing in particular she was waiting for to put the ice on her groundbreaking trek.

Referring to her favourite Tetley tipple, she said: "What I am most looking forward to is a pint of Joshua."

The chartered physiotherapist in sports medicine was one of five women who made history as the first all-female team to conquer both the North and South Poles.

The women, who also included a Bradford's Ann Daniels, celebrated their arrival at the bottom of the world with a glass of champagne, a chorus of the National Anthem and a congratulatory phone call from their patron, Prince Charles.

Zoe battled through temperatures sometimes as low as minus 57 degrees centigrade in her 60-day trek across the Antarctic and says she became used to the freezing conditions.

Speaking from the South Pole on her BT Sat telephone, she said: "Although you never acclimatise, we got used to it. At the beginning it was about minus 12 degrees. Towards the end it was minus 29. It's all relative really as one day the temperature actually went down slightly and we said 'Oh, good, its only minus 26!'".

Zoe, who was brought up in Bramhope and went to school there, also attended Leeds Girls High School and now lives in London.

She said it was impossible to pinpoint the most difficult part of the trip and said reaching the pole was the culmination of a two-year struggle.

She said: "People look at it as just 60 days on the ice, but it took two years in planning and it was a massive venture, so some of the hardest bits were before we set off - getting sponsorship and kits and so on.

"When we got on the ice the hardest thing was having to make navigational decisions and deal with issues of food and fuel. In fact, a whole battery of things."

The women set off on the arduous 695-mile trip at the end of November and saw in the new millennium in unusual fashion.

She said: "We were out on the middle of the ice. There was 24-hour daylight and we watched the sun rotate above our heads, watching it cross every time zone."

The record-breaking trip has earned the women their own entry into the history books - but Zoe is modest of their achievement.

She said: "When you start you don't think about something like that. It is only when someone like you asks questions about it afterwards. But we've done it in style."

The women are expected to be flown home in the next two weeks when weather conditions allow aeroplanes to fly in and pick up the women.

Zoe may be looking forward to creature comforts but it seems her wanderlust may resurface.

Asked if there are any challenges left for her she said: "Probably, but I want time to think and enjoy it."

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