Ross Island to Cape Adare

Day 21 Franklin Island

A small island in the Ross Sea, north of Ross Island, where there are a few penguins. So we went ashore to visit.

We noticed a few penguins on the shore. And then started peering at the pale areas further up the hill..........

Look closely. It's penguins penguins penguins penguins penguins all the way!

Flying penguins.

Spot the seal. In the sea seals like to eat penguins, but on land the penguins are faster so there's an interesting truce of sorts.

The welcoming committee as we approach shore.

Karl, armed and dangerous and chasing the perfect penguin photo.

Penguins live at sea where they feed, mainly on krill, in the ocean and hang out on ice floes. They don't really like crowds and you mostly see them alone or with a couple of others when you spot them on the ice. They come to land to breed because they need a nice, warm, ice-free surface for their nests so they can warm and hatch their eggs. Because there's not a whole lot of ice-free land hereabouts they all seem to end up in the same spot – a penguin rookery. This rookery seemed to have millions of birds but there was probably only thousands. The really big ones do literally have millions though.

And they poo alot, covering their rookeries with "guano" (fancy word for penguin poo) which is actually often harvested for fertiliser. The rookery is covered in years and years and years worth of the stuff.

Mmmmm, lovely soft mushy penguin poo.

 And seals. 

Baby penguins are black and fluffy and very cute.

Parent penguins like to make their chicks earn their food (and ensure it really is their own chick and not an imposter) and compete against their siblings so you see chases like this breaking out all over – chicks chasing the parent looking for dinner. 

Me hanging out with my new friends.

Being launched off the beach by two of our expedition crew.

 Notice the white toilet brushes that seem to be popular among the humans? – just the thing for scrubbing off the penguin poo before heading back to your cabin.

And how do you round off a day at a penguin rookery? BBQ dinner! Though they sensibly had this indoors, with waitstaff in casual dress, free drinks and even mulled wine. Party time.

Day 22, 23 & 24. We moved north along the coast and got a little taste of just how difficult a target Antarctica was for early explorers, and even modern ones. Antarctica is pretty hard to get to. It's quite far away from anywhere across a notoriously stormy and cold sea. The land has tall, steep mountains which have a tendency to plummet straight into the sea rather than having nice shallow beaches. If you do find a nice landing spot there's probably a pile of sea ice cutting you off from it. And if you find a nice landing spot, without ice, it's probably too windy to make a safe landing.

Quite windy.

A challenging landing site.

We hadn't been able to visit McMurdo Station (US research base) because of the too much ice issue. As we came up the coast we missed our chance to visit a small Italian base (which intuitively seemed like it was going to be more fun) because of a big swell caused by the big wind issue. We had to sail straight past the Possession Islands because launching the zodiacs in the 40 to 50 knot winds (which I think is about 80 to 100 km/h but I recommend you fact check that one) is just not doable and missed Cape Hallett for the same reason.

The clouds streaming down the side of the cape, driven by the strong katabatics.

Now missing Cape Hallett was a particular blow because it's on the mainland (as is the Italian station) and, believe it or not, we hadn't set foot on mainland Antarctica yet at all. Everywhere else had been islands. So we passed along the coast, admiring the stunning scenery, spotting seals and penguins, and kept praying for the wind to ease.

Not letting the wind get in the way of my morning walk.

Pretty blue icebergs

And you can always play spot the penguin.

 Birdspotters on the bow.

So we're heading for Cape Adare, another stop on the Antarctic History Nerd tour. This is the first place on the continent where people overwintered back in (maybe) 1898/1899. There had been one previous expedition a couple of years earlier that accidentally (or maybe accidentally on purpose with a conniving captain) overwintered when their ship was frozen in the sea ice and they had to stay aboard and wait for the ice to melt the following Spring, but no-one had stayed on the mainland and no-one was really sure you could survive. Ten men came ashore, (mostly Norwegian, a couple of Finns from Lapland and one poor Aussie) built a hut and gave it a go. And they survived. Well one didn't, he has the honour of being probably the first man to die on the Antarctic Continent, but it was apparently of natural causes and was not actually Antarctica's fault. My favourite thing about this poor guy is he asked to be buried on the top of Cape Adare so his colleagues had to drag his coffin all the way up and ended up having to use dynamite to blow a grave in the frozen ground. And their hut is still (mainly) standing! The other historical connection with Cape Adare is that part of Scott's expedition (the one where they all died) came here. The Northern Party of six men came here, built a hut and spent a couple of months trying to explore and chart the coastline and doing some science. Then they were picked up by the ship and deposited further south for a quick stop off to do similar work. Unfortunately the ship couldn't get back to pick them up so they were stuck, without a hut or any provisions, having to spend the Winter in an ice cave they made and survive on the seals and penguins they managed to kill. The following Spring they walked back to join the rest of the expedition (who, incidentally, had opted to send a search party to find Scott et al's dead bodies rather than trying to rescue their six maybe alive colleagues) at Cape Adare. This was a really amazing survival story that got completely lost in the celebration of the great dead heroes of the Pole.

Anyway, we're on our way, our fingers and toes are all crossed (at least the ones that haven't gone numb), we approach Cape Adare, we take a left turn into the bay and.........the wind drops, the sea is glassy, we get to go ashore!

Karl sets foot on the Antarctic mainland, Cape Adare in the backgound.

Kara sets bum on the Antarctic mainland

Borchgrevink's hut – it is very tiny for ten men for a whole long, dark, cold Antarctic Winter but very well anchored down.

And it doesn't get any bigger inside, a small table, a couple of bunks behind.

Some more bunks. And that is pretty much the entire hut.

A drawing done by one of the men on the ceiling above his bunk – they clearly had some time on their hands.

The remains of Scott's party's hut – not quite as well constucted as the Norwegian one it seems, but in fairness was only meant to be used for a Summer season.

The penguins have made excellent use of the old provision boxes.

There were lots of penguins as always but at this colony it seemed quite late in the breeding season, there were packs of roaming adolescents, and youths who had completed their molt were starting to learning to swim. Alas there were also some little chicks who looked like maybe they had been born too late in the season and just weren't going to make it and had maybe already been ditched by their parents......

And there were the remains of those that clearly hadn't made it.