Matt McFadyen grew up in suburban Sydney fascinated by the mysteries of life beyond the confines of his home and familiar surroundings.
In December 2003, Matt McFadyen ‘the adventurer’ was born when, at the tender age of 22 years, he set sail for Antarctica in the company of five mates.
He has since become the youngest Australian to ski to the North Pole unassisted, and only the second Australian to accomplish this amazing feat twice. In his second expedition, which he completed in April 2006, he had to negotiate one of the hardest Arctic seasons in years to reach the top of the world. When not exploring the Polar Regions Matt makes his living as one of the countries most sought after Motivational Speakers.
As a young adventurer, speaker and leader Matt is second to none. His achievements at such a young age are testimony to his hard work and motivation.
Matt is affiliated with and one of the first team members of Black Heart. He started Adventure Racing in Australia’s first XPD Broken Hill and today continues with his own adventure expeditions.
2008 North Pole Expedition
The first day on arrival, Matt was informed that the ice was drifting south at 500 metres per hour thus putting him on a conveyor belt as such. The team had a discussion and agreed to be airlifted to a start point closer to the pole that would give them a realistic chance of making his goal.
At 2pm he finally headed north over good terrain but cold at -30 degrees! His team called a halt at 5.30pm and had covered a reasonable 4.5km. That first eveining, as Matt looked at his GPS, they were still drifting backwards at 500 metres per hour so by morning they would be further back from where they first started.
“No one said this was going to be easy.”
Sleeping proved to be a challenge and on one particular night;
“I just couldn’t get warm, and add to that, I dreamt about being at the beach. So you can imagine when I saw it was 25 below in the tent I wasn’t the happiest chap on the arctic. I then checked the GPS and we had drifted back 8km”.
As expected, there were the good and bad days.
“While we were skiing north today (4 April) the southerly drift had increased to 1km per hour and over our 8 hard hours we had gone forward 1.1km.”
Thankfully this was followed by an amazing experience on the 5th April, rewarded with crystal clear skies and epic views. “…today has to go down as one of the most beautiful I have experienced out here and a I sit here in my little warm tent 32km from the north pole after a great dinner of cajan chicken curry, a small glass of scotch and light my fire by the doors plying in the background. I reckon I’m one of the luckiest people on earth.”
April 6, their second last day in the big white, Matt said throughout the trip they had skied an average of 7 hours a day and were still 8km behind where they started 6 days ago, quite hard to believe really… “We have all pushed extremely hard throughout the expedition and have had some of the hardest conditions I have ever experienced up here. Although we haven’t completed our planned trip this has been without a doubt one of the most challenging and rewarding expeditions I have ever been a part of and I think its a real testament to the saying ‘It’s the journey not just the destination that matters’.”
