POLAR QUEST

MELBOURNE student Jade Hameister, 16, is swapping her summer holiday to make history by trekking 605km to the South Pole this month. This epic journey will be the third and final leg of an ambitious Polar Quest. Jade and her support crew, which include her father and two National Geographic cameramen will spend 40 days on the ice battling -30C temperatures and 24-hour blistering daylight. The young adventurer has already completed a 550km 27-day journey across Greenland and was the youngest person in history to ski to the North Pole. Jade was awarded the Australian Geographic Society’s Young Adventurer of the Year after her 2016 North Pole expedition. Adventure has always run in her family, with her dad having climbed the seven highest peaks on each continent – Everest, Aconcagua, Denali, Kilimanjaro, Elbrus, Vinson and Carstensz Pyramid. Jade’s mission is to inspire young girls to fight for their dreams. She believes having an adventurous mind means being prepared to challenge outdated thinking, taking risks and accepting failure as a possibility. Keen to be a positive influence and help raise awareness of the fragility of our planet and the impact of climate change, she delivered a TEDx Talk in August 2016 and in early 2017 did a presentation to a combined live audience of more than 12,000 students at ImagiNATION in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. The National Geographic documentary of her polar treks will be released next year.