Helen Skelton the Amazon queen

By Cassandra Jardine Published: 6:33PM GMT 06 Mar 2010

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Amazon adventure: "You should regularly enthuse people. The misfortune that can occur is that they fail"

Helen Skelton can still perceptibly hold that she has usually paddled her approach in to the jot down books, not once but twice. "It feels weird," she says, removing used to hold up on dry land after spending twelve hours a day for 6 weeks, circuitous her approach down the Amazon, peaceful herself on for the consequence of all the thousands of seven- and eight-year-old Blue Peter fans who sent their great wishes.

Forty-three MPs have tabled an early day suit congratulating her. Soon, the Guinness Book of Records should endorse that the 26-year-old Blue Peter presenter from Cumbria has not usually finished the longest piece for one person tour in a vessel 2,010 miles but additionally set the longest area trafficked in twenty-four hours by a lady in a kayak: 75 miles. When Googled in future, the initial references for her should no longer be "cleavage", "hot", "legs" and "tights".

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To be categorised as a fluffy-headed sex-pot seems ludicrous for the lady who had usually once set feet in a vessel prior to she sealed up for the venture. By Jan 20, when she set off from Nauta in Peru, she had outlayed hours on paddling machines but sceptics, inside and outward the BBC, pronounced she would never have it.

Not usually did she infer them wrong, she showed herself a excellent bard by her weekly mainstay for The Sundayand blogs for the Blue Peter website. Vivid as they were, they didnt discuss it the total story, any some-more than the filmed snippets on that Helen displayed the happy grin that won her the Blue Peter pursuit eighteen months ago.

In fact, she can right away admit, she was miserable for the initial couple of weeks. "I outlayed majority of that time in tears. I felt tired, ill and unequivocally grouchy and I was shockingly stroppy with the movie crew."

Skelton has learnt most lessons over the past dual months, not slightest that there are some-more critical things to think about than shampoo when environment off for the Equator. "I gave up on my hair," she says. "I was pouring buckets of H2O over my head usually to keep cool."

She got alternative things wrong, too. Taking usually one span of gloves was unrealistic; she finished up with 150ft of fasten wound turn her hands to keep them from cracking.

Reluctant to splash the required fifteen litres of H2O a day since she didnt wish to have to keep interlude to pee, she became droughty and twice had to be since injections for feverishness exhaustion. Her feet were the main problem. "They burnished invariably on the bottom of the vessel that was wet: I had such bad sores that I had to nap with my feet on a pillow."

With the pain, the feverishness and the mosquitoes, she slept really bad prior to her 4 oclock starts each morning. Further dejection descended when her iPod pennyless and she had zero to confuse her from thoughts about the distress ahead. "I was marked down to perplexing to recollect the names of shops in sure streets and all the names of people in my first propagandize class. I felt lowest on Saturdays when I would routinely go to football with my family, so I invented singing games with the crew.

"The misfortune impulse was when I reached the half-way mark. When I should have been celebrating, I proposed throwing up. Next morning, I woke up to find the rest of the organisation sick, and the day-boat carrying the vessel had sunk.

Brazilians lifted it and patched it up. She carried on, but the locals warned that she would never paddle some-more than thirty miles a day, and would not finish in time for the moody home. At her lowest ebb, she motionless there was small point fretting about progress.

Living for the impulse done all the disproportion that, and a bloody-mindedness grown as a younger sister dynamic not to be outdone by her brother. The serve she travelled, the tougher the paddling became. The Amazon changed some-more slowly, creation it tough to have headway. A clever breeze buffeted her about the waterway, that was by afterwards as far-reaching as the English Channel and roughly as busy. Tankers upheld by, their wash promulgation her off march and the waves became so outrageous that she would vanish from view.

But she had learnt to suffer herself. "Fish jumped in my lap. The birds and butterflies were so charming that you would think they were hand-made. Most noted of all was the jaw-dropping, eye-popping spectacular put on by mating pinkish dolphins on Valentines Day. By the end, I was great since I didnt wish to leave."

Making 50 miles a day, she reached the finish at Almeirim on Feburary 28, 3 and a half days forward of schedule. A scoffer inside of the BBC sent her an email observant he due her a splash for being so negative. "Its not about "I told you so," she will discuss it the immature fans who followed her progress. "You should regularly enthuse people. The misfortune that can occur is that they fail."

But there is a downside to success: she has been really bad bitten by the endurance-challenge bug and is already meditative about the subsequent adventure. "Something in a cold climate, may be rock-climbing. "You dont know how to do it, people say. But I didnt know how to vessel either."

Helen hopes her tour will enthuse people to climb to their own plea for Sport Relief. Enter the Sport Relief Mile and assistance lift income that will shift lives for ever. For details, go to sportrelief.com. A full round-up of "Helens Amazing Amazon Adventure will be shown in dual "Blue Peter special episodes on BBC One at 4.35pm on Mar sixteen and 17.