It has always been my philosophy to have a go. The biggest adventure in my life happened in 2013. I went to Antarctica. Going there was not just ticking off an item on my bucket list, it has been a lifelong obsession. When I told my family and friends that I was finally off on my trip, the question most asked was: Why Antarctica?
I have always loved cold, ice, snow, mountains, and untamed places and the southern continent offered all these things in one package. So I answered their questions by saying: you either ‘get’ Antarctica, or you don’t.
Antarctica is immense. I did not truly understand how immense until I saw this very small part for myself. Neither pictures nor words can capture the pure beauty of this place. All shades of white merging; ice, mountain, sky, cloud. Only the mountains know where their boundaries lie.
In Antarctica, everything, except weather change, moves slowly: the ship, people laden down with clothes, the ice, the glaciers. Time.
I among the fortunate few who have travelled to 77 deg south, as far as you can go by ship; to have flown by helicopter into Taylor Dry Valley; to have visited Scott and Shackleton's historic Ross Sea huts; to have stood on the flanks of Peter 1 Island.
I have been 'South' three times, and would return in the blink of an eye. These experiences have led to the publication of Why Antarctica? a Ross Sea odyssey, a travel eBook on my first expedition to the Ross Sea, and a memoir I co-authored with 99-year-old John Russell, an Australian Antarctic Engineer who established Mawson Station in 1954.
Read my blogs of my Antarctic adventures