SPACE ODDITY

The greatest wilderness of all, Antarctica is a stark and pristine land whose preservation has never been so crucial

- Stanley Stewart

Apparently it’s a common feeling, this lingering obsession. Looking back now on my time at the end of the world, I am haunted by Antarctica. It feels unreal, dream-like—those ice lakes scattered with star points of light, the immense snow cliffs with their blue shadows, the gossamer sheen of silver across the ridges of the frozen ocean, the white abstract shapes. Nothing prepares you for this place. It is a continent of superlatives—the coldest, driest, highest, windiest space on the planet. But its beauty is what will break your heart.

We had flown south from Cape Town, five and a half hours across the Southern Ocean, unaware of how intoxicating Antarctica would be. There was cloud cover for much of the way, but after three hours, the sky cleared and I looked down on icebergs afloat on a sea of intense blue. We were at 35,000ft, and I suddenly realised the icebergs, calved from the vast continent that lay in wait, were the size of counties.