WELLINGTON, Dec. 31 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand's Kylie Wakelin along with her Commonwealth Antarctic expedition team has made it to the South Pole after 50 days' trekking, making her the first New Zealand woman to achieve the feat.

    According to the Timaru Herald, the seven-woman team reached the South Pole just after 11:00 p. m. New Zealand local time Wednesday (10:00 GMT Wednesday), an experience Wakelin described as "absolutely brilliant".

    "We're all absolutely ecstatic. The feeling of finally getting there was absolutely brilliant," she was quoted as saying by the Timaru Herald.

    "We're a little bit short on food but we are now under the safety umbrella."

    Each woman was in good health, having towed an 80 kg sled loaded with food, fuel and equipment for the past 39 days -- skiing for six to 10 hours a day -- to travel nearly 900 km to the pole and mark the 60th anniversary of the Commonwealth.

    They expected to be airlifted from the pole back to their starting point, a commercial expedition base at the Patriot Hills, near the bottom of South America, and then to fly back to London via Chile.

    Wakelin stepped in as New Zealand's representative on the team in early October, after the expedition's British leader, Felicity Aston, axed New Zealand Army doctor Charmaine Tate, 33, who had trained for the expedition with the international team in both Norway and New Zealand.

    The expedition comprises women from Brunei, Cyprus, Ghana, India, Singapore and Britain.