INTREPID adventurer Dr Stephen Martin braved freezing temperatures in an ice-cracking? 92-day journey to the North Pole - but he'll soon be back in Bolton!

Dr Martin swapped his bedside manner at the Royal Bolton H?ospital for tough survival skills, as he walked 1,200 miles in a record breaking Arctic mission. The locum doctor is well known to patients and nursing staff in the town at the hospital's ear, nose and throat department.

He is now being hailed a national hero after taking part in a two man trek through the Arctic - the first ever unsupported journey to the North Pole by British men.

He and David Mitchell, an electrician from Cumbria, reached their goal last Monday and were later flown to America. They are said to be resting before heading back to Britain. Staff at the Royal Bolton Hospital are thrilled at his achievement and are expecting him back in the next few weeks .

Dr Martin, 41, w?ho lives in Derbyshire, has been ?the town's stand-in ENT specialist for several years.

A spokesman for the ENT department at Bolton said: "He is a very popular man with a great sense of humour. We are all very proud to be associated with him.

"He has been our stand-in doctor for a number of years now and he says he loves coming to Bolton.

"We're expecting him back in the summer when he will be given a real hero's welcome."

The journey to the N?orth P?ole involved the two pulling sledges weighing 200 kilos each in sub zero temperatures. The sledges were so heavy, they had to join forces to pull one sledge together for a mile before returning for the second one.

They had given themselves only a one per cent chance of completing the mission and carried all their own food, tent equipment, cameras and medical kit.

They had not only had to endure temperatures of minus 50 degrees - but also had to ?put up with just one change of clothing, including underwear, in 100 days.

A spokesman for the ENT department added: "It must have been unbearable but they had to think of food and survival first. I bet he was only too glad to reach the pole and have a bath and change of clothes."

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