When Catharine Hartley was training to pull her sledge to the South Pole, she would harness herself to an old tractor tyre and drag it up Cross Dyke, a ridge on the South Downs with exhilarating views across the meandering channels and inlets of Chichester Harbour.
But when she returned from her exhausting 61-day trip, the walk she took to reflect on the experience and think about the future was more private and secluded: down a lane from her home village of Chidham, and across fields to a jetty beside one of those inlets.
She'd been there on the eve of her departure as well, and dozens of other times when she wanted to escape and take stock of her life: as a child she also took friends down there to go mudlarking at low tide, returning to be hosed down on the lawn by a furious mother.
"The place is very special for me, like an old friend, because it's got a lot of emotional history," she says. "I'd go there if I was feeling miserable or wanted to contemplate what to do about problems with boyfriends or whatever. For 30 years I've been doing there to think about things."
The jetty has a fine view across the channel to Bosham, one of southern England's most beautiful villages, with its Saxon church and rich history: it was here that King Canute is said to have ordered the tide to recede, and the village also features on the Bayeux Tapestry.
Hartley once waded through the mud across to Bosham at low tide, but usually her walk continues a cou ple of miles down the coast to the hamlet of Cobnor, where she used to keep a small dinghy for sailing around the islands and sandbars, picnicing and sunbathing.
The path goes past fields of potatoes and cabbages and barley, with seabirds hanging on the wind and small boats riding or fighting the tides.
"It's incredibly peaceful, and it's wonderful when you've just come back from London or from travelling because it's familiar and safe and normal," she says.
"I would always go by myself, because I'd hate to take someone else who was bored by it or failed to appreciate it. It's something I don't want to share. I rarely meet other people, and when I do they tend to be other locals, so it's nice to stop and pass the time of day."
But Chidham by itself would never be enough: Hartley, now a location man ager for BBC TV, used to tour the country with theatre groups and would walk by herself for hours in the moors and dales. She now goes rock climbing too, but says she never takes risks.
She suffered from being bad at sport at school and has loathed any competitive activity ever since. Instead she's discovered that she likes confronting hardship: "I really enjoy going on walks when it's filthy, miserable weather , when its pouring with rain and you're struggling against the wind.
"I've been on some horren dous walks in Scotland, but the feeling at the end is absolutely fantastic, when you get back and sit by the fire.
"I think I must enjoy a struggle, but I find it so hard to explain why. Perhaps it is because I love putting my body through something difficult and gruelling, and testing my mental strength as well.
"I think it makes me feel alive. For many years I just plodded along and I hardly even felt awake, but the kind of thing I'm talking about really opens up your senses and makes you feel you really exist."
Antarctic walker
Catherine Hartley reached her mid-twenties feeling that her life was going nowhere. "I felt I had failed educationally and was just bumbling along, but I desperately wanted to succeed at something without knowing what it was," she says.
"So I gave up work and went travelling for two years to sort myself out, and I discovered that I had this phenomenal thirst for adventure. I just yearned to go where no one else went, and when I got back I realised this was where I'd make my mark."
Then she started thinking and reading about the polar regions and discovered that none of the half-dozen women who'd walked to the South Pole were British. "I decided that one day, the first British woman would be me," she says.
After years of planning, training and struggling to raise £30,000, she finally shared the achievement in January this year with Fiona Thornewill from Nottinghamshire. They travelled in a group which included Fiona's husband Mike, four other men and two experienced polar guides. Shortly afterwards, five other British women completed the journey without guides.
"The journey was hideous, an enormous struggle, going through one pain barrier after another," says Hartley. "I was the weakest of the group so I had to deal with the demoralisation of trying to keep up, and struggling every inch of the way.
"When I came back I said, never again. But after about three months I began to get itchy feet, and I'd possibly like to look at something else, but I don't know what. No British woman has walked the whole way to The North Pole yet, but that's much harder because it's not on land, so you have to go in winter when the ice is frozen hard.
"So it's colder and darker and there are huge pressure ridges in the ice and you have to haul your sledges over them, which needs an incredible amount of strength.
"But there are many other things you could do in other parts of the world as well."
The practicals
Nearest stations to Chidham are Bosham and Nutbourne: National Rail Enquiries 08457 484950. Information about accommodation and walks from Chichester Tourist Information Centre, 01243 775888, www.sussexlive.com. Long-distance walks include the South Downs Way and the Sussex Border Path. Best map for Catharine Hartley's walk is OS Explorer (approx 2 inches to 1 mile), no 120 (Chichester, South Harting and Selsey), £5.50. See also OS Landranger (approx 1 inch to 1 mile) no 197 (Chichester and the Downs), £5.25.
