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
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
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
Four and a half years in the making
[Add photo of moleskin notebooks spread out on my bed] July 2015. For four and a half years I’ve been scribbling into moleskin notebooks. In the process I discovered that there’s a clarity of thought you find in writing that you miss when you simply chase the neurons firing in circles around your head. I’m […] Read More
One last taxi ride (sat alongside eight months of nostalgia in Beijing, China)
As a sat in the taxi to Beijing airport I had a feeling that I don’t recall ever having before. Goosebumps and a smile had formed as I allowed the accumulation of experiences from the last eight months to wash over me. It was close to midnight on the final day of my journey. The […] Read More
Antarctica. Chapter 4: Walking amongst penguins
The boat continued through the Bransfield Straight (the waters separating the South Shetland islands from the Antarctic peninsula) in the night. It was also colloquial known as the mini Drake. Only, if it was rough, I slept right through it. A couple of glasses of wine the night before a great aid to heavy sleep. […] Read More