"Wild Girl - How to Have Incredible Outdoor Adventures" by Helen Skelton and Liz Kay (Walker Books)

Helen Skelton is, without a doubt, one truly inspirational lady - and whether she's presenting on TV or trekking across the antarctic on a bike, she has all the grit and determination to make for an amazing role model.

In "Wild Girl: How To Have Incredible Outdoor Adventures" by Helen, with illustrations fron Liz Kay, she aims to inspire all of us (girls and boys) to take those first tentative steps out into the amazing world that could be on our doorstep, or perhaps travel further afield in search of true adventure.

Part biography and part fact-filled outdoorsy manual, Helen writes with authority on what it's like to plan, train and then embark on amazing journeys in harsh environments.

For example, how about a triple marathon across the Namibian Desert?

Or a Kayak safari down the Amazon?

Or riding a specially adapted snow bike where no one's ever ridden a bike before - the South Pole?

Helen has done all these things and many more, and it's excellent to see a ton of photos and information from those amazing trips and adventures chronicled here.

Biking and kite surfing in Antarctica? Why not!

Helen put her body to the test in the extreme cold and the blistering heat, and each of her diaries shows the kit and the mental and physical preparation she underwent before each journey.

Piranhas, a childhood fear in fish form! Yeek!

The planet is an incredible place - and though it's brilliant to see Helen's adventures laid out like this, we dread to think of the massive carbon footprint those trips must have cost.

I personally would dearly have liked to see it mentioned that children (boys or girls) C's age can have many, many amazing outdoor adventures without the need for extensive travel to the far flung corners of the world. Through Scouting or Guides, C has managed to do most of the more attainable challenges in this book in one form or another. Perhaps even doing the Duke of Edinburgh Award would be a perfect inroad into having some brilliant outdoor fun without breaking the bank (and let's face it, for a lot of the activities listed here, you're going to need to be minted or have some seriously generous benefactors (or, I dunno, become a TV presenter perhaps - which thankfully Helen does acknowledge at the back of the book, as well as making mention of the support teams and organisations that need to be in place for anything major like trekking across the Antarctic).

Some adventure activities you can do a bit closer to home!

Without being too much of a downer on the book, it is inspirational stuff though - and if it achieves one thing, and a few kids get out of their comfy chairs, put down their tablets and phones and get out into the great outdoors, then it'd be well worth the cover price - and if anyone can motivate you to try these things, it's definitely Helen!

Sum this book up in a sentence: A fab and inspirational book about Helen Skelton's many amazing adventures (with tons of other inspirational women included too) that might just spur you on to trying a few new things yourselves.

"Wild Girl - How To Have Incredible Outdoor Adventures" by Helen Skelton and Liz Kay is out now, published by Walker Books (kindly supplied for review).