I am currently working with Wigwam Press to promote Due South, a reportage of the worldÂ’s first helicopter flight from the North to the South Poles, documented with images taken by award-winning photographer Joanna Vestey who accompanied/co-piloted the helicopter alongside her husband, famed adventurer Steve Brooks, on the AmericaÂ’s length of the journey (from Alaska through to the southern tip of Chile).
DUE SOUTH: The epic story of the first helicopter flight from the North to South Poles. The subject of a very successful adventure documentary, premiered at the Royal Geographic Society and shown on Discovery Channel (2009).
Words by Rebecca Stephens
Photographs Joanna Vestey
Available via: www.wigwampress.co.uk
Content Over 250 colour photos. Approx. 40,000 words.
The original idea was gloriously simple, at least in concept – to fly a helicopter from the very top of the world to the very bottom – a feat never before attempted. The journey would take in some of the planet’s most extreme wildernesses, from the polar ice sheets to mountain ranges and canyons, rainforests and deserts, river and oceans, glaciers and sand dunes, with visits to indigenous tribal groups along the way. Pilots Steve Brooks and Joanna Vestey were no strangers to adventure. Steve had already found his way into the record books as the first person to drive from America to Russia across the Bering Strait, while Joanna had worked all over the world as a photographer. This is the story of how together they flew the length of the Americas, and the story of Brooks’ further ambition to top and tail the adventure with flights to the polar extremes. Brooks’ first attempt to cross the infamous Drake Passage en route to the South Pole was to end in near fatal disaster when the helicopter suffered engine failure and he ended up in the icy waters, lucky to escape with his life. Two years later he returned and successfully crossed the Drake, flying on to the South Pole. This book is the story of a young couple’s phenomenal journey and their enduring will to succeed. Documented by Joanna Vestey’s stunning images and told in the words of Rebecca Stephens, the first British woman to climb Everest, it is both an epic adventure story and a striking testament to the power of positive thinking.
A timely foreword by Sir Ranulph Fiennes, who says: “…an extraordinary journey told in words and pictures that capture a unique, and quite literal, cross-section of the world we live in from the frozen Poles to the steaming rainforests of the Amazon. With its dramatic and near-fatal ditching in the Drake Passage on the final leg of the journey, it was a story that picked me up and swept me on to what I am relieved to say was a successful and happy conclusion. It will not disappoint!”
Biography Joanna Vestey is an award-winning photographer whose work has been published widely both nationally and internationally. Steve Brooks is an avid adventurer, record-breaking helicopter pilot and joint founder of one of EuropeÂ’s largest property investment companies. Rebecca Stephens was the first British woman to climb Everest and the seven summits, and is the author of several books.
lucy@mothershippublicrelations.com
Regular contributor Mac ruminates on the world of travel & some of his adventures along the way