Dutch Actress Successfully Ends Journey to South Pole with a Tractor

The whole adventure started years ago, in her home town in the Netherlands, as she would drive a tractor for 38,000 km (23,612 mi) across Europe and Africa. The Dutch adventurer failed to finish her tractor-journey and recently decided to make the last leg.

Osservoort was lucky enough to get some help from tractor makers Massey Ferguson who not only did embrace the adventurer’s dream, but even built a special vehicle to bear with the harsh weather conditions in Antarctica. And it truly was an incredibly challenging trip, which took 17 days of tough driving.

Constant updates of the venture were uploaded on the crew’s website, which they named Antarctica 2. The name is honoring legendary explorer Sir Edmund Hillary, who was the first to travel to the South Pole on tractor back in 1958.

“With the Antarctic’s constant daylight at this time of year, the team created their own 30-hours days, driving the MF 5610 hard for 23 hours or more at a stretch, pausing only briefly for routine maintenance and driver changeover before pushing on,” the team explains in a press release.

Along the way they tackled treacherous crevasse fields, steep climbs, punishing sastrugi (which reads: solid ice-waves as much as a meter high) and deep, soft snow. While the Antarctica 2 team would cross the Gabienz Mountains at 3,400-meter altitude (11,154 feet), temperatures reached minus 56 degrees Celsius with the wind blowing hard. They even faced a massive solar storm that temporarily blacked out communications, but at the end the expedition was a success.

We'll just leave you with the footage taken right at the finish line.