Antarctica
My Return to Queenstown
The Heritage Adventurer returned to the Port of Bluff at a quick pace to get there before forecast gale force winds. We docked on the high tide at around midnight andI have to say that it was much easier to sleep at a calm mooring rather than on the rough sea earlier in the night. […]
Read More
Campbell Island and Final Days of this Trip to the Sub Antarctic Islands
It’s a long between places in this area of the ocean. To reach Macquarie Island from the Auckland islands, it took a day and a night of sailing. It took a similar period to get from Macquarie Island (my last post) to Campbell island. It is now taking us in another 36 hours to return […]
Read More
Macquarie Island
Over the last few days, we have been at Macquarie Island, deep in the Southern Ocean . On the island is an Antarctic research station and Australian weather station, Of all things, there is a Telstra mobile phone tower. Because of Covid regulations, we were not allied to visit the base but we had plenty […]
Read More
A Visit to the Auckland Islsnds
We have spent the last two days on the second of the Sub-Antarctic Islands on this trip – Auckland Islands. We are at around 50 degrees south – a much higher level of latitude than Antarctica but still s long way south. Our first stop at these islands was Enderbee Island, the subject of my […]
Read More
My First Day in the Sub Antarctic Islands
We cleared immigration and sailed last night from the Port of Bluff on the Heritage Adventurer. Strong south westerly winds created large seas and the ship rocked and rolled all night By midday today they had mellowed and are now quite flat. For me, w we see alking is a bit like having Parkinson’s – […]
Read More
Exploring Around Queenstown.
After Yesterday’s wet weather, today was fine, and a t times, even sunny. Having rented a car I was able to drive over the rather spectacular Crown Range to Wānaka with my friend Michael. We stopped in many places to take photographs or just to appreciate the local scenery. For a distance where the road […]
Read More
My Sub-Antarctic Islands Odyssey
Today I am starting a new adventure – one that takes in a number of sub-Antarctic Islands in the Southern Ocean. I will board a ship that departs from the port of Bluff at the southernmost point in New Zealand on a tour that will take 12 days to visit some remarkably scenic places that […]
Read More
Antarctic Photos Revisited
While the weather has been too hot to work outside, I have been spending some time reviewing my photo library – culling out some duds, key wording some and just reviewing others. It’s a useful exercise as sometimes when you come back to photos that you initially rejected, you find that they were pretty good […]
Read More
Flight Over Antarctica
On Sunday, we enjoyed the Christmas present that Jill and I had given each other – a flight over Antarctica. Run on a chartered Qantas long-range 747, these flights operate only six times per year and this one was the last flight for the season. Jill wouldn’t get to see the white continent any […]
Read More
Antarctica Photo Gallery
Now that I have been home from Antarctica for a few days, I have thad some time in which to sort out my photos (2983 of them) and select the best few to show in a public photo gallery. I have created four separate galleries in this post – 1. Ushuaia, 2 Falkland Islands, 3. […]
Read More
Still On The Way Home
Today has been our final day at sea. It’s been another day of little wind, sunshine and smooth seas. We’ve been making good progress towards Ushuaia at 14 knots (about 20 km / hr) means that bee have made up too much time. In the afternoon we have slowed down to a little over 5 […]
Read More
On the Way Back to Ushuaia
I’m taking the risk of writing tis in the middle of the day as I don’t think that anything much is going to happen here for the rest of the day. We are now at sea on our return trip to Ushuaia with another day and a half of sailing. We are blessed with calm […]
Read More