Ann Daniels: Best day yet after meeting polar bear

Nine days into her epic journey, mother-of-four Ann Daniels, 40, from Whimple, woke up on Sunday to see a large shadow looming over her tent.

She fired two shots, one above and one to the side of the bear with a .44 Magnum pistol.

The bear then retreated leaving Ms Daniels to complete her best day yet.

I finished packing quickly and ran away, north Ann Daniels

She said: "I unzipped the tent, pistol ready, and peered out. There was a big male bear eyeing up my tent.

"I fired one shot into the snow in front of him and one in the air as he retreated. I finished packing quickly and ran away, north."

She covered more than nine miles on Sunday and at 0840 GMT on Monday had covered nearly seven miles in temperatures which have been dipping as low as -25C.

For two days she had been holed up in her tent by atrocious weather and managed to avert a near disaster when fuel from her stove spilled out.

Bureaucratic delays

She said: "The fuel ignited when I lit the stove, but I put it out quickly with my oven glove - taken for just such an emergency."

Ms Daniels, pulling a 220lb (100kg) sledge, set off from northern Siberia after bureaucratic delays held up her departure by 16 days.

She was scheduled to be picked up by helicopter from the North Pole on 28 April, but that date has now been put back to 10 May.

A veteran of a number of Polar expeditions, Ms Daniels was, with London-based film financier Caroline Hamilton, the first woman to reach both North and South Poles.