First-time Antarctica

With visitor numbers rising on the White Continent, many people are now experiencing it for the first time. We sent our own Antarctic novice to see what they can expect

- George Kipouros

Land, at last. A dense fog afforded only glimpses of an ethereal landscape of snow, ice and rock. An unmistakable sense of achievement flooded over me; one of those moments in travel when you feel more alive than ever. After all, this was the White Continent that lay ahead of us, the most remote and inaccessible landmass on the planet.

For most travellers attempting to reach West Antarctica, the quickest way is by sailing a narrow stretch of sea where the Atlantic entangles with the Pacific and the Southern Ocean. It is rarely smooth going, and only possible in the warmer months. But after two challenging days crossing the infamous Drake Passage, whose strong winds and rough seas are the stuff of legend, we were approaching Elephant Island, some 250km off the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.

The continent's inaccessibility, coupled with weather conditions so harsh that life really shouldn't exist here, has always been part of its mystique. Against all odds, a unique endemic ecosystem has thrived for millennia. It's no wonder that Antarctica has overtaken human imagination ever since Aristotle first theorised its existence in the 4th century BC. He saw that the north lay under the constellation Arktos (the Great Bear/Ursa Major), and surmised the existence of a mirror image of the world he knew, a giant southern landmass he called Antarktos (opposite of the north).

It was a long time between then and when Captain James Cook became the first recorded navigator to cross the Antarctic Circle in January 1773; and longer still before Roald Amundsen became the first to reach the South Pole in December 1911. Their stories, as well as many other heroic tales of human perseverance, endurance and disaster, have only furthered the myths that swirl the White Continent as freely as the wind.