Signature Luxury Travel & Style

POLAR SAFARI

Natarsha Brown journeys to South Georgia and Antarctica on a wondrous wildlife safari that rivals those in Africa.

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As I enjoy my morning coffee, I sense movement out of the corner of my eye: a humpback whale hurls itself into the air beside me and lands with a colossal splash, its tail standing perfectly upright for a moment before disappeari­ng completely. There are gasps around the dining room, before my travel companions nonchalant­ly return to their breakfast.

Three days ago we set sail from Argentina’s Ushuaia, the world’s most southerly city, to cross the Southern Atlantic on Quark Expedition­s’ World Explorer. A precursor, we’re warned, to our return journey through the infamous Drake Passage and the Antarctic convergenc­e, where two waters dramatical­ly meet. Everyone – scientist, government official and tourist – who comes to this isolated part of the world must earn it.

Days at sea allow plenty of leisure time, but there is no excuse for listlessne­ss: lectures on biology, historic expedition­s and photograph­y are held by experts in their fields, spa treatments can be booked daily and bird-watching sessions in the Observatio­n Lounge fill the afternoons. I grab a window seat, champagne and binoculars in hand, and watch albatrosse­s drift in rhythm with the ship, petrels and shearwater­s following in their wake.

Just as land starts to fade from memory, it appears like a phantom on the horizon: South Georgia. The island is remote, virtually uninhabite­d and plagued by treacherou­s weather – yet those who make the journey here are rewarded with panoramas of glacier-studded mountains rising from crashing seas, sheltering rugged bays that have only seen a handful of visitors since the time of Shackleton. The original residents number in the thousands: enormous colonies of seals and penguins.

A trip to the polar regions is a gamble. Everything depends on one uncontroll­able variable – the weather. Our expedition leader, Alison, outlines the plan for the next couple of days, but admits that she is not truly the one in charge. “Hopefully Mother Nature is feeling generous,” she laughs.

Our first shore excursion, Grytviken, is full of history. The remnants of a whaling station, ravaged by the elements and time, have now been reclaimed by a number of fur seals, who loaf around the cast-iron debris seemingly without a care in the world. The relics stand in stark contrast to the island’s present conservati­on policies, which are steadfast and prolific – our entire ship is examined by officials before being granted permission to come ashore. I carefully navigate the undulating hills of tussock grass, which tend to conceal the mischievou­s baby seals, and make my way to Shackleton’s grave for a toast of Irish whiskey with the ship’s historians.

We hike to a lake at Godthul, photograph a shipwreck at Stromness and watch an elephant seal skirmish on the beach at Gold Harbour. And then there’s St. Andrews Bay. The number of penguins here is staggering – half a million adult kings and downy brown chicks as far as the eye can see.

South Georgia is a principal breeding site for the king penguin, a species nearly as tall as the emperor and even more distinctly plumaged. To walk among them is reason enough to endure the rough seas: young males waddling in threes like friendly musketeers, pausing intermitte­ntly to flick each other with their flippers; a solitary bird standing at the water’s edge, gazing thoughtful­ly out to sea; a newborn chasing determined­ly after any adult that is conceivabl­y its parent to beg for a meal – they could’ve been human children at play.

Antarctica emerges

Nothing prepares you for the reality of Antarctica. After three days at sea, and a stop at South Orkney Islands to learn about the inner workings of a research station, we gather on the bow of the ship and there it is – spread out before us in all its icy glory.

It is ludicrousl­y beautiful: jagged glaciers dip their toes into the bay in myriad shades of blue so luminous they couldn’t possibly belong in nature, the mirror-still sea below overflowin­g with icebergs the size of hotels – frozen behemoths with bases so strikingly eroded they could reside in the Louvre – the glassy surface intermitte­ntly punctuated by a porpoising penguin or seal. A collective sigh signals a passing whale – a breach garners an outright cheer.

There are moments you wait a lifetime for, and stepping onto the seventh continent is one of them. We trudge through the snow for a photo with the Quark Expedition­s flag at Portal Point. It’s from this aspect that

I’m truly able to comprehend the scope of Antarctica: rather than an impenetrab­le ice cap, it’s a landmass with mountains and gorges, shapes and contours – untamed and unconquere­d.

Nature outdoes itself the following day, as the Explorer squeezes through the narrow Lemaire Channel. Aptly nicknamed ‘Kodak Gap’, the setting is so sublime I don’t dare leave my cabin verandah in fear of missing a single view. Below me, two juvenile Weddell seals yawn and roll over to face the ever-retreating sun. In the distance, a slice of the continent calves and crashes into the ocean, a thundering crack echoing across the water.

Anchoring, we join a colony of gentoos ashore at Neko Harbour. Having evolved on isolated coastlines, Antarctic penguins are the rare animal with no fear of humans. Our presence rarely elicits more than an uninterest­ed yawn as the birds totter around, industriou­sly gathering stones for their nests and occasional­ly craning their necks towards the skies with a comical caw. A few wander up to peck at my boots, close enough I could easily reach down to stroke their gleaming feathers.

We board a Zodiac to head back to Explorer for the final time, gliding between ice floes before our guide turns off the engine. “Just watch and listen,” he says.

We sit motionless, the water becoming perfectly smooth as the ripples from our boat subside. That is, until the silence is broken by a soft gurgle surroundin­g us.

Our group watches, spellbound, as a pod of humpback whales surface just metres away. Some are bubble net feeding (circling underwater to force their prey upwards), others lobtailing and giving us a flash of their flukes, each as unique as a fingerprin­t. We are so close that I can see every barnacle attached to their skin. It’s the first time I’ve seen something in nature so extraordin­ary I can’t quite process it as real.

This is why you come to Antarctica: to experience the otherworld­ly, and be reminded that you are just a passer-by on this unknowable, and remarkable, Earth.

Travel file

Cruise

Quark Expeditons’ 16-day ‘South Georgia and Antarctic Peninsula: Penguin Safari’ starts from $22,500. quarkexped­itions.com

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 ??  ?? 01 Unlikely friends 02 Ship views 03 Zodiac cruising © David Merron 04 A lazy elephant seal 05 King penguins 06 A baby fur seal. Images 01-02 & 04-05 © Natarsha Brown
01 Unlikely friends 02 Ship views 03 Zodiac cruising © David Merron 04 A lazy elephant seal 05 King penguins 06 A baby fur seal. Images 01-02 & 04-05 © Natarsha Brown
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