As we were travelling down the east coast of Australia in January 2007 I made myself a vow that next Christmas I was going to avoid the crowds. Stopping for the night at the Quest in Wollongong I happened to pick up their corporate magazine off the table to browse through, inside the mag there was an article on cruising Antarctica, well that was all she wrote, there wouldn't be any crowds down in Antarctica. As soon as I was home I was onto the other long suffering women in my life, Ali, my travel agent, and she soon had us booked on a boat out of Ushuaia in January 2008.
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Gentoo Penguins escorting us to shore.
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MV Discovery.
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| More from the zodiac on our way ashore. |
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Our second stop on our cruise was a Chilean air force station, Base Antarctica Gabriel Gonzalez Videla, it really rolls of the tongue doesn't it. As usual for Antarctica we went ashore by zodiac, pulling up at a small jetty. My main memory of the base was all the Gentoo Penguins that were nesting around the huts, the other vivid memory was the smell of all the penguin poo.
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The red stuff is penguin poo!
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Yes, even Antarctica has a tourist photo op!
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| This little bloke was on a mission to build a bigger nest. |
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We were able to wander around for a couple of hours taking it in, it was like we were in a national geographic movie. We watched the males carrying small stones to build their nests, the babies being fed in the nest, and the Skuas waiting to swoop onto any unattended eggs. All the time conscious of the fact we weren't meant to get to close to the wildlife but aware that the wildlife was just as curious of us as we were of it, there were many occasions when a curious penguin would waddle straight up to us to check us out!
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Feeding time.
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Yumm, fresh Krill.
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I think meal times over.
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| Time for a nanna nap now. |
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All to soon it was time to jump back on the zodiac and head back to our ship, after the usual boot cleaning we had plenty of time to check out the scenery on deck whilst the other groups went ashore. All in all another stunning day in Antarctica.
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A Shua waiting for a feed, the penguins don't look happy.
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| The name of the base just rolls off the tongue. |
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The Dirt.
We went down to Antarctica on the MV Discovery out of Ushuaia down the bottom of Argentina. The cruise was around $6000 each which I thought was pretty good value, we had our own room with a porthole and an en-suite. The official instructions with the wildlife was not to approach closer than two metres, but the penguins in particular were very inquisitive and would come right up to check you out, I probably wouldn't get that close to the Leopard Seal's that were waiting just off the shore ready for some take away penguin.
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| The little jetty at the base. |
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| Some more Gentoo's on an iceberg on the way back to the boat. |
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| Just about to climb back on board the mother ship. |
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