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There are some things you should do once in a lifetime. Well, that's what I was told when they suggested sleeping out on the ice in Antarctica.
I was not alone in turning down this chance of a lifetime, preferring to snuggle up in my bunk on the Akademik Ioffe, aka The Peregrine Mariner, while the really intrepid campers were ferried ashore in Zodiacs. For me, simply being 63 degrees south, surrounded by icebergs was adventurous enough.
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This article continues, written in an chatty conversational style and includes information on the tour, zodiac trips, the wildlife, historical anecdotes and fascinating facts about Antarctica.
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(finishes…)
Antarctica has always attracted explorers. Some like Scott and Oates from that ill-fated expedition still lie somewhere under the ice. Others like Shackleton, and his crew, who faced tremendous extremes to simply survive after their ship was squeezed to its destruction by the pack ice, kept coming back.
"Great God, this is an awful place," said Scott in his diary. He was desperately disappointed to have missed being the first person to reach the South Pole, even though he was the first Briton. But then he finished, philosophically: "Well, it's something to have got here."
It IS something to get to Antarctica. Something that only a few thousand people have done so far. And although I may not have slept on the ice, I have at least stepped on the shore of one of the world's last truly wild and unspoiled places.
(1750 words + Factfile)
©Sally Hammond 2006
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