In December last year, Ms Wakelin (37) reached the South Pole, having skied about 900km across the Antarctic as part of the Kaspersky Commonwealth Antarctic Expedition - the first New Zealand woman to do so.
When interviewed on her return, Ms Wakelin told the Otago Daily Times there would probably be another adventure in the future - maybe something polar.
How right she was.
In June this year, she moved from Twizel to Wanaka and started planning more expeditions.
Her next major "hare-brained scheme" is a trip in 2012 which is referred to as "horizontal Everest" because it is so tough.
Along with fellow Kiwis Jo Prince and Kimberley Wallace she plans to ski 770km across the frozen Arctic Ocean to the North Pole.
Among the challenges will be hungry polar bears and moving sea ice.
It will be a much more difficult journey than the South Pole expedition.
For Ms Wakelin, who has had "a niggle" that would not go away about a trip to the North Pole, it was "probably now or never".
It seemed it would be only a matter of years until the sea ice had thinned so much that such a trip would not be possible.
It was a trip that many teams tried and failed to complete - "many more people fail and get pulled out after two or three weeks than succeed" - and the trio realised they would have to be extremely well prepared.
They will fly to Ward Hunt Island to start the journey and then be picked up by a Russian helicopter once they reach the North Pole and taken to Svalbard in Norway, before travelling to Oslo and then flying home.
It will be an expensive trip, costing the women about $100,000 each, so a "massive" part of the pre-expedition preparation involved raising funds.
While the trio were all excited, they were also realistic and knew it was going to be extremely hard work so they were arming themselves with as much knowledge as possible.
It would be very cold - much colder than the Antarctic - "what we need is some ingenious Kiwi to devise a self-heating suit and gloves for us," she said laughing.
Later that year, another expedition was planned.
Ms Wakelin said they "might be the last two big ones for a while".
After speaking at the New Zealand Mountain Film Festival in Wanaka, she was approached to take part in a ski trip across remote South Georgia, in the southern Atlantic Ocean, probably at the end of 2012.
Ms Wakelin, Viv Eyers, Lee Ball and Lydia Bradey will sail under Cape Horn across to South Georgia, cross the island on skis to an old Norwegian whaling station and then sail back to South America.
Along the way, they plan to climb Mount Worsley, on the west side of the Briggs Glacier in South Georgia.
It was named after Akaroa-born Frank Worsley, who was part of Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914-16.
He was best remembered for navigating the expedition party to safety after the Endurance was crushed by ice floes in the Weddell Sea in 1916.
While everyone knew about Shackleton, Ms Wakelin said the team wanted to "bring to light a great Kiwi navigator" who did an amazing job in extremely difficult conditions.
"He really was a tremendous hero."
Ms Wakelin still kept in touch with the other women from the South Pole expedition, via email and Skype, and said it was interesting hearing how they were all faring.
The expedition drew together seven women from various Commonwealth countries and marked the 60th anniversary of the Commonwealth.
While she thought there would not be a big adjustment returning home after the trip, she admitted it did take a bit of time to get settled and back to the daily routine.
Describing it as one of the undoubted highlights of her life, she said it was hard work but enjoyable.
Since then, she had been taking some time to "live a bit more quietly".
She has been doing some work for Wanaka Flightseeing and also Harris Mountains Heli-Ski in the winter.
She has both her private and commercial pilot licences and hoped to do some flying over the summer.
Over the Christmas-New Year period, she was looking forward to spending time with family, friends and her dog.
Any spare time was used for planning for the North Pole expedition.
Once those two major expeditions were over, Ms Wakelin expected she would have "had enough" and just be keen on some "nice friendly mountaineering trips and surfing holidays and warm rock- climbing holidays".
