A NEWLY-WED from Hampshire is about to leave her husband and travel to one of the world's most remote places. 

Natalie Corbett is one of four women who have been chosen to travel to a distant part of Antarctica and take up jobs including running the world’s most remote post office and counting the island’s penguins.

Natalie will be joined by Clare Ballantyne, Mairi Hilton and Lucy Bruzzone. 

They beat a record number of applicants to become the team responsible for managing historic site Port Lockroy, on Goudier Island.

The team will abandon home comforts to live and work in the region without running water or a flushing toilet.

Natalie, who will be in charge of running the gift shop, will dubbed the trip a “solo honeymoon”.

Natalie, who has worked in retail for more than a decade and got married in June, said she could not resist the opportunity to work on the island.

“Who wouldn’t want to spend five months working on an island filled with penguins in one of the most remote places on the planet?

"I’ll be leaving behind my husband, George, who I only married in June so I’m treating this like my solo honeymoon,” she said.

As well as dealing with sub-zero temperatures and almost constant daylight, the women will share the island with a colony of gentoo penguins, which Mairi will be in charge of monitoring.

The four women were among 6,000 people who expressed an interest in the roles, which were advertised by the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust (UKAHT) charity.

They will be based on the island for five months, spending Christmas together and taking care of the charity’s flagship site, Port Lockroy – home to the world’s most remote post office and museum.

Training for the trip, which will see the team travel 9,000 miles to reopen the bay for the first time since the pandemic, includes learning remote first-aid and a talk from a “penguinologist”.

The team will be joined by Vicky Inglis, a general assistant in the 2019/20 season, who will help settle them in for the first 10 weeks.

Vicky, a 42-year-old from Aberdeenshire who started working for UKAHT full-time in summer, said: “Port Lockroy holds a very special place in my heart. Having spent five months out there before the Covid-19 pandemic, I’m excited to be travelling with the new team to introduce them to the magic of the Antarctic.”