Wendy trained as a classical ballet dancer and teacher at the University of Cape Town. After dancing professionally for eight years she taught at the same university before setting out on her own. She has run her own successful exercise studio and produced several ballets for the Cape Youth Ballet. Together with her oceanographer husband she has taken part in research cruises off the West Coast Southern Africa and travelled to some of the Earth’s more interesting places, including the Namibian Skeleton Coast, Mozambique and the Antarctic. Her first visit to the Antarctic was in 2003, aboard the SA Agulhas, supervising a group of scholars who accompanied the vessel on a relief cruise to Queen Maud Land.

With her children at university she decided to continue her interest in travel, visiting Antarctica again in 2007 aboard the Polar Star, in the Antarctic spring of 2009 and again in 2010. At present she alternates residences between Hout Bay, South Africa and Beira, Mozambique.