Think of an ‘adventurer’ and images of brawny, bearded men in hiking boots spring to mind. Rarely would one picture a slender, blonde-haired former teacher and mum of one.

Jacki Hill-Murphy is about as far removed from the stereotypical rugged Viking explorer as is humanly possible. But she has not only travelled to the worlds’ most inhospitable places, in doing so she’s retraced the steps of some little-known - but no less extraordinary – women, who were blazing a trail 300 years ago.

If female explorers are uncommon now, they were virtually freaks in the era Hill-Murphy seeks to emulate. Most of the women she’s followed had to overcome extreme hardships with little or no support, and in an age that took no interest in female accomplishment.