Retiring Wallabies forward Dean Mumm is set to take on a challenge he says isn't in the "realm of reality".
Mumm, 33, who has announced he will retire from rugby at the end of the 2017 season, will walk to the North Pole next year.
The second-rower will make the trek, which he expects to last nine days, to raise funds and awareness for a charity doing research into premature birth.
It's a cause close to Mumm's heart as he and his wife lost two children during pregnancy.
"It's not in the realm of reality is it really, thinking to do this," Mumm told AAP on Wednesday..
"I certainly wouldn't have done it but for the cause to mean so much to me."
It's another interesting twist in the life of Mumm, who reflected on a "pretty fun career."
He has played 57 Tests and 124 times for NSW, 112 of them in Super Rugby.
Mumm made his debut for NSW in 2004 and is their most-capped second-rower.
He never thought he'd play for either the Wallabies or Waratahs again after joining English club Exeter in 2012.
"At that stage I hadn't played for the Wallabies for about 18 months and so to do it again and to be able to pull on that jumper another 24 times has been pretty special," Mumm, who hasn't given up on adding to his Test cap tally, said.
He returned to Australia in 2015, winning a place in the Wallabies' World Cup squad that year and in that tournament captained the side against Uruguay.
A grafting workhorse in the Wallabies and Waratahs engine room, Mumm nominated the Tahs' 2014 Super Rugby win as special, even though he wasn't part of the team at the time.
Mumm said he had notified Waratahs coach Daryl Gibson and his teammates of his intention to retire some time ago and he was happy to leave on his own terms.
"Obviously when you get to the oldest in the team and get to the back of the bus there's probably only one way out I think and that's retirement," he quipped.
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