Adventurer: the Melbourne schoolgirl aiming for a polar hat-trick
Two down, one to go. Melbourne schoolgirl Jade Hameister has achieved so much in her 16 years – skiing to the North Pole and crossing the icy wilds of Greenland. Now, Susan Horsburgh reveals she is ready for a polar hat-trick – skiing to the South Pole.
For almost a month, on skis nine hours a day, Jade Hameister dragged an 80kg sled across the icy wilds of Greenland, every part of her body screaming with pain. She had persistent nosebleeds, blisters on her feet, and the beginnings of frostbite on her backside. Every muscle ached, yet she battled on through sometimes ferocious winds, at one stage climbing over the chaotic surface of a steep, slippery icefall, all the while hauling precious supplies heavier than herself.
“You just have to keep going,” says Jade, back in her family’s bayside Melbourne home after becoming the youngest woman to trek across Greenland, covering 550km in 27 days. “Out there you have nothing, just that voice inside your head – and you can actually learn from it if you listen to it.”
That inner voice, which continually told her to “just do it”, has become louder and more powerful the deeper she gets into her polar mission. The goal? To become the youngest person in history to pull off the polar hat-trick, skiing to the North Pole, crossing Greenland
(the world’s second-largest icecap after Antarctica), and skiing to the South Pole.
In April 2016, at the age of 14, Jade knocked off part one of her quest – an 11-day, 150km expedition – becoming the youngest person to ski to the North Pole from anywhere outside the last degree, then completed the Greenland crossing this year on June 4, the day before her 16th birthday.
The records are nice, she says, but they are not her main motivation. So why do it?