All the way south

In winter on the Antarctic peninsula, it gets so cold that even the sea freezes over. Frozen seawater makes getting around easier, and once upon a time it allowed three British scientists from the Faraday Antarctic research base to ski their way across the solid sea ice to spend some leisure time away from the base. Around about the time they reached Petermann Island, six miles away, a big storm kicked up and broke up the sea ice. They had radio contact from a hut on the island. At first, they provided updates every day. Then once a week. Then once a fortnight. Eventually, they cut contact altogether. With constant inclement weather and pack ice remaining on the water, it was a long period of time before their location could be reached. By the time it was, they were already presumed dead. When rescuers entered the hut, the one you see above, all they found were penguin feet nailed to the tables. Presumably they had gone mad from hunger and isolation. This was in 1982. Hea...

Day one The first big challenge of the Inca Trail trek was packing my duffel bag that the porters would carry. I had brought a way too much crap. We had received the duffel bags at the briefing the night before, and I thought I had packed it fairly lightly, but having to squeeze the provided sleeping bag in at the start of the trail was a big challenge. I normally travel light, but this time I had definitely over-packed. The poor porters. The packing challenge took place after a comfortable three-hour pre-dawn bus journey, where I managed to get some extra sleep in. Once everyone's duffels were sealed, and we got our rented hiking sticks, at last it was time to get going. After bouncing, full of beans, across the footbridge that marks the beginning of the trail, the first gentle little uphill section was...a little too breathless for comfort. We were above 3000m, and the lack of oxygen made you feel like you hadn't walked in about a year. This would take some getting use...

Irish people like to think that we can spot other Irish when we're abroad just by looking at them (which is true, we can). I think after living two years in the Netherlands, I can now do the same for the Dutch. I've been using this skill a lot in Colombia, because there's a whole lotta Dutch here. I shared a taxi from the airport to the centre of Medellín with two meneers from Amsterdam and The Hague. Yet another night time approach to a new place, but this one was the best yet. Medellín is located both in a valley surrounded by hills, and on the sides of the hills themselves. The airport is outside this urban basin, and the area where I was staying (Poblado, where most of the hostels and nice restaurants/bars are) is located on a mountainside south of the centre. When I got to my hostel rooftop the view was incredible. I spent five minutes with a beer in hand just drinking it all in (along with Martin, my dorm roommate - Dutch of course). A really nice, modern hoste...

Like Uluru and the Great Barrier Reef, in my six years living in Sydney I failed to make it to New Zealand, not even for a weekend ("I'll go next year, next year"). Seeing as it was on the way to South America, this was another "now or never" moment. So I squeezed three days in to the start of my three months. Three days in New Zealand, as it turns out, is a very tight squeeze. I flew into Queenstown. I had heard nice things about the area, but I was not prepared for the epic jaw-to-the-floor scenery encountered on approach and after landing. I had heard it was nice, but not this nice. This thought played around in my head over the next couple of days on the south island - some places are over hyped, and don't meet expectations when visited. But New Zealand, or at least the parts I saw in the south island, are under  hyped. Either I haven't been paying attention, or their tourist board needs to get their arse in gear - the South Island is mind-blowing...