Lillemor Rachlew

Recent research suggests Rachlew was the second woman ever to land on the mainland of Antarctica, and the third to step onto the continent including islands.

Not even a dog could scramble over those steep blocks.Her diary is now lost and the extracts quoted in Lars Christensen's book, Such is the Antarctic, are "the only remaining words from the women who went to Antarctica before World War II".

[12] At one time during the morning it became a little calmer and I made my way along to the verandah — as we called the built-in deck beneath the captain’s bridge — with my cine camera under my arm, to see if I could get any snaps of what could be seen of the after-deck between the waves.

Suddenly the ship lurched violently and I fell and rolled in snow slush right across the verandah, coming to anchor with a crash on the port side, in the midst of some chairs and tables that were lashed securely there.

[14] The Times reported that after the 1933 voyage Rachlew planned to go back to South Africa, where the travellers were assembling for the "11-days trip to Enderby Land".

Then on 30 January 1937, Ingrid Christensen set foot on the mainland at Scullin Monolith, and records suggest that Rachlew was the next of the "four ladies" to do so.

[7]She was also the second woman to go up in a seaplane to view previously unknown Antarctic territory, where Ingrid Christensen had earlier dropped a Norwegian flag.