8 years later, January 2023. The memories are of course hazier now, but the place has maintained a hold within them. The wildlife has only come close to being matched by the Galapagos Islands, tellingly another ocean nature reserve. The respect you gain for the natural world in visiting these places is enormous. The sense […] Read More
Antarctica. Chapter 9: Departure
My final footsteps in Antarctica were on another volcanic outcrop of black sand and grey rock, backdropped by a large glacier. It was busily inhabited by penguins, seabirds, and seals. The seals were adolescent males, and as it was a Sunday afternoon, these creatures behaved much like teenage boys the world over. Slovenly sprawled on […] Read More
Antarctica. Chapter 8: Antarctic waters
The next day, I awake to feel some lingering effects of the vodka and drinking that followed back on the boat. The bottles of Malbec that I’d smuggled on board having been put to good use. Yet this was mitigated by some sense of pride that I’d got drunk on this far flung continent. And […] Read More
Antarctica. Chapter 7: Research on the continent
Antarctica is called the uninhabited continent, but this is not strictly true. Today, about 10,000 researchers and support staff work in the summer months, before dropping to about 1,000 hardy souls through the permanent darkness of the winter. Its winter population is little larger than the village where I grew up in the English countryside, […] Read More
Antartica. Chapter 6: Into the valley of icebergs
We are woken early the next morning to step out on deck to view our path through the Lemaire Channel. Huddling out onto the upper decks wrapped in layers. It was an impressive sight. At the narrowest point the channel is 1 mile wide, with small glacier covered mountains rising up either side. Yet it […] Read More
Antarctica. Chapter 5: Antarctic Life
As we ventured further south along the peninsula over the following days, the landings continued. The next morning, we visited an island, busy with gentoo penguins. Far from alone, they were also accompanied by seals and flocks of seabirds. In Antarctica the islands are not selfishly populated. All but 2% of the continent is covered […] Read More
Weather on the Rock
It’s an odd thing, to have so much of your time in a place defined by a landmark. Forever within you periphery vision, my balcony overlooks it, my daily commute skirts around it, it’s an obligatory feature on almost every photo of the area, a defining driver of history, and it’s gravitas is powerful enough […] Read More
Paraguay. Introduction
Enchanted and perplexed. It was how I felt after a couple of days in Paraguay’s capital Asuncion. I was enchanted by the breezy sensibility of some of the locals that I’ve just met; the tranquilo streets of the paint worn old down on the banks of the lazy Paraguay river. Set against the gleaming sense […] Read More
Project
This is for all of you that write travel journals, diaries, blogs, whatever you might like to call it. I’m curating something that needs your help. I’ve met you in many places. Sitting at a hostel table in the night trying to get something down before it’s forgotten. Or perhaps in a foreign coffee shop […] Read More
The historical frontier
For most people, the boundary line between Gibraltar and Spain sits by the airport runway. A couple of basic buildings with passport scanners, nonchalant Spanish border guards, and occasional heady queues of traffic as the number of cars overwhelms this narrow entry into the Gibraltarean peninsula. In the morning, if I pause, I can watch […] Read More