Firefighter Rowe has burning ambition to conquer frozen frontier

Never one to rest on her laurels, the multi-talented sportswoman finally met up with a new group of teammates in the searing heat of the Brecon Beacons recently to prepare for a ground-breaking assault on… Antarctica!

Rowe has joined four other firefighters from South Wales Fire and Rescue and London Fire Brigade (initially there were five other members) who aim to overcome one of the harshest environments in the world to become the first all-female emergency services team to conquer the polar desert.

The aim of the Antarctic Fire Angels is to ski coast-to-coast across Antarctica in November 2023. Together they will cover 1,900kms, pulling 85kg supply sleds in temperatures as low as -50 and in wind speeds of over 60mph. Ambitious to say the least, when all five have to learn to Nordic ski in the process.

The highly motivated quintet aim to complete their mission in 70 days but just to get that far will be a mission in itself. The pandemic has obliterated their schedule and training plans while the small sum of £700,000 has to be raised to ensure the record attempt goes ahead as planned. A lack of training in snow has also proved problematic.

Trips to Snowdon and expeditions to Norway had to be put on ice as the pandemic ensured the group had to come up with novel ways of preparing for the daunting challenge that awaits them.

In May they did a 10-hour stair challenge in full fire-fighter kit at Harlequins where they carried equipment up and down the stairs, which was the first time they had set eyes on each other (other than the obligatory zoom calls) for some considerable time.

More recently, they went wild camping in the Black Mountains in the Brecon Beacons for their first ‘proper’ expedition-type training together.

“It was good fun but also quite an invaluable experience for us all in just a team bonding sense,” said Rowe. “Just being out in the wilds basically was great.”

“It was absolutely boiling hot, the heatwave was verging on being too hot to be honest. The terrain is obviously very different to what we will experience in Antarctica but just in terms of us just helping each other out and working as a team was important.

“We were camping and we will be essentially camping in Antarctica, it’s just going be a lot colder.

“Things like going through the processes of putting the tent up together, getting all the kit out and doing the things in the right order so you know when we find somewhere to camp the first thing you do is get the shelter up, then sort kit out, get the food out and things like that – get changed if we need to, things like that so I suppose in a way it was a similar process – just obviously completely different weather and landscape-wise in what was the first time we’d all done it together.”

Rowe may have swam for Wales as a teenager, been a world record holder and double world surf life-saving champion just out of her teens and rowed for Great Britain, but it is her time with Wales as a second row that she hopes will get her through any dark moments during the expedition.

“When you play rugby you have to be pretty tough and hard, most of us play rugby with injuries constantly and I think that kind of grind and those low level aches and pains that you experience when playing a game week after week, it just kind of becomes the norm.

“Being in Antarctica after a few weeks of constant skiing every day I feel my rugby background is going to help me mentally – just to draw from those times and experiences I know I made it through and I was alright in the end so everything was fine.

“I think just the resilience I’ve got from all the training, the travelling to and from Wales when I was working in England and when things may not have been going so well in rugby, whether we were down or losing badly or just pulling on experiences from that, when it comes to being in Antarctica will be huge for me.

“There are going to be lots of ups and downs definitely – maybe more downs along the way because we are going to be out there for nearly three months and it’s going to be the same thing every day – it’s definitely going to help – also the team dynamic – it’s just the five of us for three months and having the tolerance to deal with different personalities will really help me.”

Rowe earned 19 caps in the second row for Wales between 2015-17 and cherishes her playing career.

“It was absolutely amazing,” she recalls, “When I started playing rugby I had retired from rowing because I had been injured. I started playing because I was Welsh, I loved the sport and had always wanted to play but for me it was just a little bit of fun and a way to stay fit and healthy. And then to get into the Welsh team was a huge bonus for me and a surprise as it wasn’t something I had thought about doing previously.

“Every day I was in that team playing and training with the squad and being able to tell people I was a Welsh rugby player was just amazing, almost as if in a dream. I absolutely loved every second of it because it was something I never thought I would end up doing.

“It’s a brilliant sport, as we all know the nation’s favourite in Wales so to be able to say you have played for the country in that sport is brilliant.

“I played with some awesome players and played against some amazing teams, the best teams in the world – New Zealand, England, France – I got to go to a World Cup, played in three Six Nations so it was absolutely brilliant – I had an amazing time.”

Rowe was in the last Wales Women’s side to beat England, but the game was bittersweet for her as a shoulder injury forced her from the field on debut in 2015.

“Beating England in my first Six Nations game and getting my first cap was amazing. That was my first game so I didn’t really know what to expect either so to beat England was brilliant as they are the ultimate enemy for us.

“Unfortunately I got injured in that game, I was absolutely gutted I had to get dragged off the pitch, it was devastating for me at the time but luckily I carried on to play all the other games in the Six Nations. I think the following year we beat France which was another real highlight – that was a tough old game beating France at home.

“Playing in the World Cup was just a great experience and to play against teams like New Zealand and Canada, in the women’s game you don’t get to play against teams like that very often so it was just an awesome experience.”

Back to the present day, the Antarctic Fire Angels have a training expedition booked for Norway in January where they hope to ‘learn to be out in the cold.’

“I think it’ll be a real eye opener for all of us but it’ll be good to see how everyone goes and how we cope with it because then we can we can look at what we really need to work on,” says Rowe.

“We are all complete novices in terms of Nordic skiing and expeditions really. We have really thrown ourselves into the deep end.

“For a couple of weeks I was down on Barry Island beach skiing up and down – it was really good and worked quite well – we were able to do the actual motion of skiing and plod along pulling a tyre so that was another way we adapted to not having any snow.”

The explorers are hoping the expedition will empower women by eradicating the gender stereotypes that can stop young women from entering male dominated industries, like the fire service. In doing so they are hoping to raise awareness and smash the stigmas of mental health.

“I have a lot of colleagues who suffer from PTSD and just dealing with things they may have seen. I think it is really important that you can talk about these things, you shouldn’t be ashamed or embarrassed or feel like you can’t – with mental health you need to be ok not to be ok and just talk about things,” explains Rowe.

“That may be the only way some people can get out of the hole they are in. If you’re not feeling quite right mentally there is no shame in it at all and that is a big thing certainly in the emergency services that we’re trying to push forward.

“The fire service is deemed a more macho type of role and that stigma needs to go really. It can be ultimately dangerous for people not to deal with it so it is something we are really passionate about.”

The Antarctic Fire Angels claim they are “Ordinary women doing extraordinary things” but when all of her previous sporting achievements are put forward as a counter argument that she is anything but ordinary, she laughs:

“I’m still an ordinary woman – I still have to do the washing, cook the food, put the bins out, deal with the new puppy, I’m still doing ordinary things. I just happen to want to push myself and challenge myself further and I think I was lucky growing up.

“My parents gave me the confidence to do that and don’t worry if you fail – just get on with it and hopefully this will inspire other women to maybe just give it a go. It’s my mantra in life, just giving it a go, luckily I have been very successful.”

• Once the funds for the expedition have been reached, any profits made between two key charities –  The Firefighters Charity and  The Harlequins Foundation – will be divided.

Hear Rebecca Rowe on the WRU podcast