Monday, February 1, 2010
Home at last...
Well it is all over. I’m now back in my office at work and it is all just memories (and a few thousand photos!). I hope you enjoyed reading the blog. We certainly enjoyed living it! It was an awesome trip – so many amazing things in such a short period of time. Shark diving in South Africa, sand boarding in Namibia, bungee jumping and chasing tiger fish on the Zambezi in Zambia, hot air ballooning in the Serengeti, scuba diving in Zanzibar, amazing animal watching all across Africa, the Lion King in London’s west end, sunset Caparinas on Copacabana beach in Rio, catching peacock bass and piranha in the Amazon, getting drenched at Iguazu falls, cruising the vineyards of Argentina and gorging on delectable steak, chasing Dorado on the Rio Parana, para-gliding in the Andes, hiking and glacier walking in Patagonia and finally capped off with an amazing Antarctic expedition. I really don’t know how any other holiday is ever going to measure up!
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Antarctica!!!!
How to describe Antarctica? You can’t really, it is just somewhere you should go. You really, really should go. It is a landscape unlike anything I have ever seen, and on a scale I couldn’t imagine. You are permanently surrounded by massive, sheer mountains with vast glaciers flowing down to the ocean. The icebergs also must be seen to be believed. We passed many that dwarfed our little ship, towering above the 5th floor observation lounge, and only 10% of their total mass is visible above the water!
We had a reasonable passage over, a bit rolly with a decent swell directly on our beam. Nicole was a bit ill for the first day of the crossing, but was a bit better on the second even though the wind had picked up a bit. Our first landing was on the morning of our third day on the South Shetland Islands and then a second landing of Deception Island. We didn’t step onto the Antarctic continent proper until the following day, which was a spectacular landing with blue skies and the sun reflecting off the snow capped peaks and glaciers surrounding the ship.
From there we headed south through the famous Lemaire Channel and crossed the Antarctic Circle the following morning. The crew put on an entertaining ceremony to appease Neptune, forcing all punters to kiss a long dead fish carted around by the very eccentric kayak guide before handing out early morning tots of rum to all.
Our most southerly point was Stonington Island, at just over 68 degrees south. Returning north again we navigated some very, very narrow channels between the islands, which had all the crew very excited as apparently most captains refuse to take their vessels through due to a lack of chart data and little room to maneuver around the many icebergs that block the way. As it turned out we got the most amazing (and only) sunset of the trip during our transit of one of these narrow channels. By midnight the sun was still above the horizon and we gave in to exhaustion and headed for bed.
We visited several Antarctic research bases, some active, some historic. We landed among penguin colonies who have no fear of humans and happily walk around you like you aren’t even there. They are pretty cute little critters, but a few thousand camped up together don’t smell so good. We also did quite a few cruises in the zodiacs, looking for whales, seals and checking out the icebergs. Our last zodiac cruise was just amazing. The ocean was oily glass with just a gentle snow falling and we followed a group of humpback whales for an hour or more, often with them only meters from the side of the zodiac. They look kind of big when you get that close.
The other highlight of the trip was the food. I have never eaten so much. Ever. Being the good boy scout I am, I like to be prepared. In this case I was concerned what might happen should we be forced to abandon ship in the icy conditions. Looking for inspiration as to how I might best survive I decided to emulate the key survival mechanism used by all Antarctic mammals – Blubber. Fortunately with a cooked breakfast, vast lunch buffet and 4 course table service dinner I was able to rapidly grow my Antarctic Survival Suit. Whilst some may think it was gluttony, I prefer to think of it as insurance. I even got the opportunity to put my new insulation to the test with a bit of Polar Snorkeling in the 0.8 degree water. It actually didn’t feel cold, in fact I couldn’t feel anything at all, including for half an hour after I got out. I take the fact that I survived as proof that my buffet blubber was indeed effective.
Our trip home from Antarctica across the Drake Passage was good fun (for those of us not susceptible to sea sickness anyway). The first day wasn’t so bad, but the second day the wind and swell kicked up to give us a good show. I spent several hours on the bridge loving it, with one eye on the wind speed meter as the gusts hit 72 kts (that is 130km/hr for all you land lubbers) and the larger swells must have been nudging 10m. We were even taking the odd bit of green water over the bow of the ship on some of the steeper swells. Very cool!
Well, we are now back in Ushuaia awaiting our flight out tomorrow morning and are well and truly on the way home. It is only just starting to sink in that our great adventure is all but over and in less than a week we will be walking out of Darwin airport and heading home to be knocked over by the dogs whilst enjoying my new insulation in the wet season heat.
We had a reasonable passage over, a bit rolly with a decent swell directly on our beam. Nicole was a bit ill for the first day of the crossing, but was a bit better on the second even though the wind had picked up a bit. Our first landing was on the morning of our third day on the South Shetland Islands and then a second landing of Deception Island. We didn’t step onto the Antarctic continent proper until the following day, which was a spectacular landing with blue skies and the sun reflecting off the snow capped peaks and glaciers surrounding the ship.
From there we headed south through the famous Lemaire Channel and crossed the Antarctic Circle the following morning. The crew put on an entertaining ceremony to appease Neptune, forcing all punters to kiss a long dead fish carted around by the very eccentric kayak guide before handing out early morning tots of rum to all.
Our most southerly point was Stonington Island, at just over 68 degrees south. Returning north again we navigated some very, very narrow channels between the islands, which had all the crew very excited as apparently most captains refuse to take their vessels through due to a lack of chart data and little room to maneuver around the many icebergs that block the way. As it turned out we got the most amazing (and only) sunset of the trip during our transit of one of these narrow channels. By midnight the sun was still above the horizon and we gave in to exhaustion and headed for bed.
We visited several Antarctic research bases, some active, some historic. We landed among penguin colonies who have no fear of humans and happily walk around you like you aren’t even there. They are pretty cute little critters, but a few thousand camped up together don’t smell so good. We also did quite a few cruises in the zodiacs, looking for whales, seals and checking out the icebergs. Our last zodiac cruise was just amazing. The ocean was oily glass with just a gentle snow falling and we followed a group of humpback whales for an hour or more, often with them only meters from the side of the zodiac. They look kind of big when you get that close.
The other highlight of the trip was the food. I have never eaten so much. Ever. Being the good boy scout I am, I like to be prepared. In this case I was concerned what might happen should we be forced to abandon ship in the icy conditions. Looking for inspiration as to how I might best survive I decided to emulate the key survival mechanism used by all Antarctic mammals – Blubber. Fortunately with a cooked breakfast, vast lunch buffet and 4 course table service dinner I was able to rapidly grow my Antarctic Survival Suit. Whilst some may think it was gluttony, I prefer to think of it as insurance. I even got the opportunity to put my new insulation to the test with a bit of Polar Snorkeling in the 0.8 degree water. It actually didn’t feel cold, in fact I couldn’t feel anything at all, including for half an hour after I got out. I take the fact that I survived as proof that my buffet blubber was indeed effective.
Our trip home from Antarctica across the Drake Passage was good fun (for those of us not susceptible to sea sickness anyway). The first day wasn’t so bad, but the second day the wind and swell kicked up to give us a good show. I spent several hours on the bridge loving it, with one eye on the wind speed meter as the gusts hit 72 kts (that is 130km/hr for all you land lubbers) and the larger swells must have been nudging 10m. We were even taking the odd bit of green water over the bow of the ship on some of the steeper swells. Very cool!
Well, we are now back in Ushuaia awaiting our flight out tomorrow morning and are well and truly on the way home. It is only just starting to sink in that our great adventure is all but over and in less than a week we will be walking out of Darwin airport and heading home to be knocked over by the dogs whilst enjoying my new insulation in the wet season heat.
Antarctic Photos
Our first landing on the Antarctic continent
A zodiac scoots past a large ice berg
Ice flows and mountains
Antarctic Sunset
Sunset seals
Keith tests his Antarctic Survival Suit with some polar snorkelling
Gentoo PenguinsSunday, January 10, 2010
South to Antarctica!!!!
The time has finally come! This is our last post before we depart for Antarctica in 3 hours!!!!! Getting very excited now. Our ship, the little 2,000 tonne Ocean Nova is dockside now, dwarfed by the 80,000 tonne Norwegian Sun, and awaiting us later this afternoon. The weather forecast is about as good as it gets down here – only a 3m-4m swell and 20kts of breeze (for comparison there is a storm forecast for later in the week which will bring +50kts of wind and +12m seas). Fortunately we will already be down there before that arrives and should miss it.
Ushuaia is, if you believe every tourist t-shirt, hat and penguin gravy jug, the end of the world, or Fin del Mundo. It is true I guess, as you can´t get much further south without a boat. It is a pretty nice town, along the shore of the Beagle Channel and surrounded by snowy mountains.
The last 10 days in Ushuaia have been pretty relaxed. We arrived here on 30 December and got tickets to a New Years party, which didn’t start until 10.30pm – I’ll never get used to Argentine hours! Was a pretty late dinner. We sat down at a random table where there were a couple of free seats, only to find that the other people at the table were from Nightcliff, in Darwin! Crazy. They were travelling with another couple from Adelaide and had flown their motor bikes over from Australia and are riding from Ushuaia to Alaska.
Aside from lying around reading books and drinking red wine (often while watching it rain) we did summon up the energy for a few days of activity on some of the sunny days. We walked out of town up to the Martial Glacier. I didn’t actually notice a glacier up there (although apparently there is a small one somewhere) but the view back over town and the Beagle Channel was certainly worth the walk. Following that we headed off to the Tierra del Fuego National Park for a day of hiking, which was also very pleasant. Nice views across the channel and to the mountains beyond. After another few days inactivity we were feeling sufficiently guilty enough that we hired some mountain bikes for a day and went for a ride out to the east of town. The road ended about 15km out and changed to a rough track. It was probably ride-able if you were really keen, but Nicole went 5m, hit a rock and fell off so we decided it was a better idea to walk (last thing we wanted was a broken wrist or something so close to our Antarctic departure). As a final parting activity we took a kayak and 4x4 tour around some of the local lakes. As usual the scenery was fantastic and kayaks are certainly a great way to see it. Unfortunately for me I didn’t go to well in the back seat of our double kayak as I must have been compressing a nerve somehow and quickly lost all use of, and feeling in, my right foot and leg. That made steering, done with foot pedals, interesting and I was quite happy to get out at the end. Anyway, alls well that ends well and I can walk again now!
We had a nice night last night in a swanky hotel (included in the price of our Antarctic tour) which made a pleasant change from backpacker hostels. We even had bacon and eggs for breakfast – I was very excited as all you normally get here is a piece of toast and a coffee. Not sure why Argentinos don’t go much on breakfast, but pretty much everywhere no one seems to bother with it (maybe as they don’t eat dinner until near midnight they aren’t hungry yet by breakfast time!?).
Well, speaking of food it’s now time for lunch then off to the boat. We´ll be back here on 23rd January, fly to Buenos Aires on the 24th then to Adelaide via Sydney on the 25th, but arriving on the 26th. Very appropriate that we should arrive back in Oz on Australia day although we won’t quite make it back for the obligatory 4x4 trip to Landrover Springs this year. We will finally arrive back in Darwin on 30 Jan and then back to the real world once more…..
Ushuaia is, if you believe every tourist t-shirt, hat and penguin gravy jug, the end of the world, or Fin del Mundo. It is true I guess, as you can´t get much further south without a boat. It is a pretty nice town, along the shore of the Beagle Channel and surrounded by snowy mountains.
The last 10 days in Ushuaia have been pretty relaxed. We arrived here on 30 December and got tickets to a New Years party, which didn’t start until 10.30pm – I’ll never get used to Argentine hours! Was a pretty late dinner. We sat down at a random table where there were a couple of free seats, only to find that the other people at the table were from Nightcliff, in Darwin! Crazy. They were travelling with another couple from Adelaide and had flown their motor bikes over from Australia and are riding from Ushuaia to Alaska.
Aside from lying around reading books and drinking red wine (often while watching it rain) we did summon up the energy for a few days of activity on some of the sunny days. We walked out of town up to the Martial Glacier. I didn’t actually notice a glacier up there (although apparently there is a small one somewhere) but the view back over town and the Beagle Channel was certainly worth the walk. Following that we headed off to the Tierra del Fuego National Park for a day of hiking, which was also very pleasant. Nice views across the channel and to the mountains beyond. After another few days inactivity we were feeling sufficiently guilty enough that we hired some mountain bikes for a day and went for a ride out to the east of town. The road ended about 15km out and changed to a rough track. It was probably ride-able if you were really keen, but Nicole went 5m, hit a rock and fell off so we decided it was a better idea to walk (last thing we wanted was a broken wrist or something so close to our Antarctic departure). As a final parting activity we took a kayak and 4x4 tour around some of the local lakes. As usual the scenery was fantastic and kayaks are certainly a great way to see it. Unfortunately for me I didn’t go to well in the back seat of our double kayak as I must have been compressing a nerve somehow and quickly lost all use of, and feeling in, my right foot and leg. That made steering, done with foot pedals, interesting and I was quite happy to get out at the end. Anyway, alls well that ends well and I can walk again now!
We had a nice night last night in a swanky hotel (included in the price of our Antarctic tour) which made a pleasant change from backpacker hostels. We even had bacon and eggs for breakfast – I was very excited as all you normally get here is a piece of toast and a coffee. Not sure why Argentinos don’t go much on breakfast, but pretty much everywhere no one seems to bother with it (maybe as they don’t eat dinner until near midnight they aren’t hungry yet by breakfast time!?).
Well, speaking of food it’s now time for lunch then off to the boat. We´ll be back here on 23rd January, fly to Buenos Aires on the 24th then to Adelaide via Sydney on the 25th, but arriving on the 26th. Very appropriate that we should arrive back in Oz on Australia day although we won’t quite make it back for the obligatory 4x4 trip to Landrover Springs this year. We will finally arrive back in Darwin on 30 Jan and then back to the real world once more…..
Photos from the end of the world
Nicole and a beautiful snowman looking past Ushuaia over the Beagle Channel 
Nicole laughing at my pain while Kayaking...
Happily kayaking while I could still feel my feet.
Ocean Nova today in front of the Norwegian Sun at the Ushuaia wharf Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Trekking Torres del Paine
After hanging out in Puerto Natales for a day to do some shopping and get ourselves organised we took the morning bus to Torres del Paine to start our 5 day trek. We opted to do the ¨W¨ rather than the full circut as we aren´t all that fit these days and weren´t sure how we would go with an 8-10 day trek.
Map of Torres del Paine National Park
We started at Refugio Pehoe, and walked up to Refugio Grey for our first night and the toe of Glacier Grey. From there we backtracked past Refugio Pehoe, where we stopped for Christmas lunch of biscuits, cheese and salami, and up to Campamento Italiano for night 2. Day 3 we left our gear at Italiano and walked up Valle Frances to near Campamento Britanico. Unfortunately the weather wasn´t cooperative and it snowed on us most of the way up the valley and we only got a short glimpse of the view when the clouds briefly parted. It was enough to see that the view would be amazing on a clear day, and whilst we didn´t see much we did see more than most people that day. We then headed back down to collect our gear and walked around to Refugio Los Cuernos for a boxing day dinner in the refugio with a bottle of red. The next day was our longest, from Los Cuernos up to Campimento Torres but by then our legs were getting used to the hills, and our packs were getting lighter, and we managed the 18km in about 6 hours which we were pretty happy with. We even started to overtake the odd other hiker on the trail.
That night was very,very cold with snow on and off all night before getting up at 3:45am in order to climb to the lookout Mirador Los Torres over for dawn. The climb up was a 45 minute scramble up the mountain in the pre-dawn light, made more interesting by the platoons of Isralies who seem to have invaded South America. They attacked the moutain like a Palastinian pre-school, but in their enthusiasum managed to regularly lose the path. The same groups would come charging past us (huffing and puffing our way slowly up), miss a turn in the trail and head off blindly up the mountain, only to have to come back down and then come charging up past us again to repeat the performance. As it turned out half of them ended up at the top of the ridge line well above the lookout, with the other half running around trying to find their mates who had the rest of their breakfast or coffee making gear. Quite entertaining.
Once up to the look out, it was cold. Damn cold. We had been warned that it would be chilly up there at dawn so dragged our sleeping bags, all our warm clothes and our coffee making gear up with to be as comfortable as possible whilst we waited (and hoped) for the sun to hit the towers. As it was the clouds pretty much spoiled the show, with only one brief ray of sunlight hitting the lower cliffs opposite the look-out, but not making it to the towers and then the snow set in in earnest. We hung on for a while hoping it might clear, but with the snow still dumping and the view almost completely gone we conceded defeat and headed back down to a well deserved bowl of porridge before our final walk out to catch the bus back to Puerto Natles where we are now.
Torres del Paine is certainly an amazing place, and well worth the hike. After 5 days we were actually dissapointed that we hadn´t gone for the whole circuit and maybe we´ll have to come back some time and do that. Whilst the weather was average at times, we also had enough sunshine to keep us going and the wind wasn´t quite as crazy as it could have been (only the odd 50 knot gust!).
Tomorrow we are booked on the morning bus to Ushuaia where we will spend new years – hopefully a bit more lively than our Christmas – before departing for Antarctica on 9 Jan for the final phase of our travels.
That night was very,very cold with snow on and off all night before getting up at 3:45am in order to climb to the lookout Mirador Los Torres over for dawn. The climb up was a 45 minute scramble up the mountain in the pre-dawn light, made more interesting by the platoons of Isralies who seem to have invaded South America. They attacked the moutain like a Palastinian pre-school, but in their enthusiasum managed to regularly lose the path. The same groups would come charging past us (huffing and puffing our way slowly up), miss a turn in the trail and head off blindly up the mountain, only to have to come back down and then come charging up past us again to repeat the performance. As it turned out half of them ended up at the top of the ridge line well above the lookout, with the other half running around trying to find their mates who had the rest of their breakfast or coffee making gear. Quite entertaining.
Once up to the look out, it was cold. Damn cold. We had been warned that it would be chilly up there at dawn so dragged our sleeping bags, all our warm clothes and our coffee making gear up with to be as comfortable as possible whilst we waited (and hoped) for the sun to hit the towers. As it was the clouds pretty much spoiled the show, with only one brief ray of sunlight hitting the lower cliffs opposite the look-out, but not making it to the towers and then the snow set in in earnest. We hung on for a while hoping it might clear, but with the snow still dumping and the view almost completely gone we conceded defeat and headed back down to a well deserved bowl of porridge before our final walk out to catch the bus back to Puerto Natles where we are now.
Torres del Paine is certainly an amazing place, and well worth the hike. After 5 days we were actually dissapointed that we hadn´t gone for the whole circuit and maybe we´ll have to come back some time and do that. Whilst the weather was average at times, we also had enough sunshine to keep us going and the wind wasn´t quite as crazy as it could have been (only the odd 50 knot gust!).
Tomorrow we are booked on the morning bus to Ushuaia where we will spend new years – hopefully a bit more lively than our Christmas – before departing for Antarctica on 9 Jan for the final phase of our travels.
Torres del Paine
Torres del Paine
On the trail with Lago Pehoe in the background
Christmas lunch!
On the trail, Torres del Paine
Lunch on day 4
A brief ray of sunshine hits the cliffs, but didn´t quite make it to the towers, Mirador Los Torres
Nicole rugged up and wating for the sun at Mirador Los Torres
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