After 1,744 km and 59 days of ski-ing alone across the coldest continent on earth, British explorer Felicity Aston has finally reached the Hercules Inlet.

Listen to an emotional Felicity speaking about the day she became the first woman in history to ski totally unassisted across Antarctica:

After waiting for a break in the weather for 24 hours, Felicity was picked up by plane and flown back to the Antarctic base camp on the Union Glacier, where she was looking forward to a glass of wine and a hot shower!

The most challenging aspect of the expedition for Felicity has been the solitude.  Back at basecamp, she tweets “Having to remind myself of the rules now I'm not alone; no peeing wherever I stand, no talking to the sun, no snot or dribble on my face...”.  But on a more serious note, crossing such a vast unforgiving wilderness on her own was an extremely isolating experience:

"One day on the narrowest part of the Leverett glacier I was hit by katabatic winds and I was sitting in the tent watching it buckle and I was thinking if the tent explodes now there's no way a plane could land anywhere safely near me. Suddenly you realise just how remote you are. In life how often are you truly responsible for your own safety? It struck me I was then, because there was no backup."

Trying to keep positive and motivate herself every morning for two months was far more difficult than she had imagined.  But she managed to do it - dragging two sledges and 85kg of supplies from the Ross Ice Shelf over the Leverett Glacier to the South Pole and across the Antarctic Plateau to the Hercules Inlet.

Find out what it was like to be alone in Antarctica

Felicity will be available for motivational speaking engagements from the middle of February.