Saturday 21 February 2009
Departure
Farewell Antarctica
It's Saturday evening of the 21st February 2009.
The final night at Halley for 10 of us (myself included). For tomorrow we head north aboard the Ernest Shackleton.
And thus concludes my Antarctic adventure...
The past 15 months on this fantastic continent have been simply fantastic.
I guess I don't need to bleat on about how much fun and how enjoyable it was, as you all have probably gathered that from my various blog entries. And that is just a small sample of them...I simply couldn't have recorded everything in this blog.
There have been many experiences whcih will live with me for the rest of my life. To summarise the most significant...In the space of 15 months I have:
- walked amongst a colony of 1000s of emperor penguins, several times over
- watched the southern lights from my front door
- sat under the millions of stars of the southern sky...in the middle of the afternoon
- flown an aeroplane over the Antarctic continent
- been to the 84th degree latitude
- watched the sun both set and rise in the space of an hour
- experienced -50degC
- abseiled into a cathedral of ice-crystals in a deep crevasse
- lived in a tent in the middle of Antarctica
- conducted experiments and measurements for world science
- seen some meteorological phenomena I'll never see again (probably)
- ran outside naked in -47degC!
The list above has hardly scratched the surface.
And now it is time to start my 6 week journey back to the UK via the Falkland Islands and South America. And then to reintegrate myself into normal society and slip back into the life I had before I left.
All I can say is this...I am so glad I took this opportunity to experience all of the above (i.e. all that I have shared with you in this blog). I have no regrets at all.
See you all in a few weeks time.
Beers are on you!
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