ACCLAIMED adventure writer, broadcaster and journalist Phoebe Smith — known among other things for her extreme sleeping and high-octane expeditions — visited the Isle of Wight to complete her latest challenge.

Phoebe, who has appeared on BBC news and Women’s Hour, walked around the Isle of Wight accompanied only by her trusty ‘wheelie’ — a slimline mobility walker christened Walter — as she braved the elements for the first part of her Antarctic training for 2020.

Next year’s expedition will see the adrenalin junkie trek across the South Pole with fellow explorer Dwayne Fields, renowned for being shot at twice from point-blank range with the gun misfiring on both occasions, and for being the first black British man to walk the North Pole.

Phoebe said: “I decided to choose the Isle of Wight coastal path to trial my specialist training equipment for the first time.

“In what I called A Wheelie Big Adventure, I harnessed myself to a light-weight wheeled trolley to simulate the sledge I will be pulling during my Antarctic challenge."

Phoebe will be using wheelies again next month when she and Dwayne embark on their first official joint training expedition under the tagline Seabirds to South.

The festive season adventure will see them walking on roller-skis to simulate cross country skis and will circumnavigate the northern most peak of Scotland through to the south of Cornwall.

Elaborating on her Island training, Phoebe said: “I started from the Red Jet in Cowes on Friday morning, at 6am, and took a clockwise route around the Island.

“I battled through heavy rain and winds and almost lost my wheelie in the breaking waves around Luccombe and Ventnor, spending two nights sleeping wild along the way

Thankfully I was welcomed by a number of lovely Island residents asking questions about myself and Walter, completing my journey in Cowes on Sunday evening to a blistering sunset.”

For more details about Phoebe’s South Pole training, visit her website at http://www.phoebe-smith.com/