While weather and equipment often play havoc with expeditions, for Ms Beilharz the first hiccup came before her group had left base camp - her team leader cut his finger while trying to slice frozen cheese and had to be evacuated. Undeterred, Ms Beilharz joined another group and headed off, pulling a sled carrying 75 kilograms of food and equipment but with only the clothes she was wearing. She remembered the joy when she was given a fresh set of clothes at the half-way point.

"That was heaven, getting a new top and new socks," she said. While the rest of us tucked into turkey at Christmas, Ms Beilharz and her companions defrosted a Christmas cake they had brought with them and nibbled on a few Santa chocolates. Dinner was usually a dehydrated meal, such as pasta, while lunch was a bag of chocolate, nuts, a chunk of salami and frozen cheese. The food was often tasteless but vital to replace lost calories.

Although several of her companions were flown home early with frostbite, Ms Beilharz's training, which included dragging tyres through the bush around Bendigo, ensured she was one of the five skiers to stick a flag in the ice at the South Pole. In 2003, she completed a four-month mountaineering course in Canada and New Zealand, but said nothing really prepared her for the intense journey.

With 1200 kilometres to cover, there was little time to gaze at the scenery. "I had to remind myself from time to time to do that," she said. "When you're tired all you do is look down. I had to think 'hang on, I'm in the Antarctic, let's look at this', but the scenery didn't essentially change most of the time." The team would ski for about 71/2 hours each day before making camp in the freezing conditions. "Essentially we would just put the tents up and dive in. We didn't do the sit around outside and look at the scenery," she said.

While the trip was exhausting, the community development worker and mother of two wasn't tempted to give up. "Never. I was certainly tempted to say let's stop and rest for a week. But I would never have given up," she said.