Dutch actress and adventurer Manon “Tractor Girl” Ossevoort arrived at the South Pole yesterday after chugging along on a tractor from Europe through Africa and across the frozen wastes of Antarctica.
“It’s quite emotional, I’m very happy,” Ossevoort said via satellite phone shortly after arriving at the Pole and fulfilling a decade-long dream.
“It feels magical to have made this happen and arrive here.”
The mother of a 10-month-old baby said the 16-day, 2 500km trip across the largest single mass of ice from Russia’s Novo base to the Pole had been tough.
Driving the Massey Ferguson tractor over the rugged, icy landscape at an average speed of about 10km/h was “like rodeo riding”. She said the worst part was “the day that I was driving for hours and could not go faster than between 0.5 and 5km/h”.
“I was worried the expedition could come to a halt if conditions got worse,” she said.
Now she has to return home. It will be a race to make it home to the Netherlands for Christmas, but “the return journey to the base will be faster because the tracks of the tractor will be frozen and it will be easier to drive”.
MISSING THE BOAT
Ossevoort began her trip in 2005, taking four years to drive from her home village in the Netherlands to Cape Town – and then missed the boat that was due to take her to Antarctica for the final leg due to delays.
Frustrated, the former theatre actress spent the next four years back in the Netherlands, writing a book, working as a motivational speaker and trying to get back on a tractor. With sponsorship from Massey-Ferguson and other companies, she finally made it.
Ossevoort travelled alone through Africa, but in Antarctica the tractor needed to creep forward day and night, so French mechanic Nicolas Bachelet shared the driving.
In total, she was accompanied by a team of seven, including crew who are filming the journey for a documentary. Asked whether this was the end of her crazy adventures on a tractor, Ossevoort said: “Yes, I think this is the best adventure on a tractor that one can come up with.”
She now plans to write a children’s book and produce the movie of her journey.
Asked what she is looking forward to most about getting back to civilisation, she replied: “To go back home to my happy ever after and to hug my little daughter.”
Her daughter, Hannah, has been in the care of her partner, airline pilot Roger Nieuwendyk.
HONOURING HILLARY
Ossevoort’s tractor is named Antarctica 2 in honour of Sir Edmund Hillary, who travelled to the South Pole on a tractor in 1958. His vehicle was equipped with full tracks, however, while Ossevoort’s has normal inflatable tyres which have been modified for better grip on snow and ice.
While fulfilling her own long-held dream, Ossevoort carried with her thousands of “dreams” collected from people in Africa and around the world.
Scraps of paper and e-mails have been converted into digital form and will be placed in the belly of a big snowman she will build at the pole – to be opened only in 80 years’ time.
“I want to turn them into a beautiful time capsule of the dreams of the world so that children and people can read something about our dreams and not only about politics or war,” she said.
Sapa-AFP