The six women on their way to the South Pole. (Below) Reena

London, Dec. 20: Reena Kaushal Dharmshaktu, who is hoping to be the first Indian woman to get to the South Pole, is carrying a national flag but yesterday explained why unlike the other five members of the all-woman skiing expedition she was not carrying an iPod.

“Being from Delhi, there is 24 hours of noise, even at night,” said Reena, who is a 38-year-old mountaineering instructor who like her team members had to put in nearly a year of hard training in Norway and New Zealand before starting the journey to the South Pole on November 22.

“So, you all must be wondering what I do while skiing for so many hours,” she pondered. “Everybody in the expedition, they are carrying iPods or some kind of music with MP3. That’s why I decided not to carry any music system.”

As an Indian townie bombarded with cacophony, “you’ll be hearing all the time noise, noise, noise, so I thought this will be my place, my time for peace and quiet and have nothing, no sound at all.”

The expedition members were flown by aircraft from their base camp at Patriot Hills to the edge of Antarctica. They have so far done 639kmout of 900km, skiing up to 10 hours a day, and hope to reach the South Pole on New Year’s Day when Reena will plant the Indian flag.

The expedition, which is sponsored by an Internet security firm called Kaspersky Lab, marks the 60th anniversary of the Commonwealth.

While Reena is representing India, the others are from the UK, Brunei, Dar-us-Salam, Cyprus, New Zealand and Singapore.

The trip began with a disaster when it was announced “with much regret that 30-year-old Kim-Marie Spence from Kingston, Jamaica, has had to leave the Kaspersky Lab Commonwealth Antarctic Expedition because of frost bite on her fingers. Following medical advice, she is flying home to Jamaica.”

As Reena yesterday headed south, she said she had found ways of amusing herself by poking holes in the sastrugis, sharp “meringue-like” ridges in the snow caused by sharp wind and very low temperatures.

They can be detrimental to skis and can sometimes snap them.

“There are these sastrugis which look like shapes of different animals, mostly fish, so sometimes when I’m walking by them, I just walk with my ski pole and make an eye on them,” admitted Reena.

She has been alone with her thoughts. “I think a lot of the past and the present and what the future has in mind. But one thing that I do think a lot about is nature and being in this kind of environment, the pure wilderness. It brings you closer and makes you think about a greater power that is around. You can actually feel something special. It brings you closer, maybe, to the creator, or the power or the gods.”

On December 12, her message, relayed via satellite phone which the women use once a day to inform Patriot Hill base camp that they are safe, stated: “We’ve covered about 460km, and we’ve got another 460km to go, and although we’ve gone halfway, we still have to be always vigilant and take care of ourselves and our feet and hands and face. And also we have to keep on eating lots of food, 4,000 to 5,000 calories, so that we get the energy to ski for 9 to 10 hours daily. Sometimes we’re not hungry but we still force-feed ourselves because we have to reach the South Pole. I have also some pain in the right foot below the ankle. I’m taking painkillers.”

On December 14, the expedition reached the halfway point having covered 454km in 22 days and was at North 86 06.406/East 82 57.066 coordinates, 446km from the Geographic South Pole.

Team leader Felicity Aston, who is British, said: “Lucky there’s been no sort of serious injury yet, but we’ve all got various aches and pains, which I think come from walking so many miles.”

An expedition bulletin warned: “Careful navigation is more important than ever at this stage as they try to avoid the treacherous crevasse fields. In addition to the daily hazards of extreme cold, high winds and the physical effort of dragging all their food and equipment, they now have to keep their minds sharp to avoid falling into crevasses.”