notes and images
It’s 2020. Why would you take film to Antarctica? No, it’s not because I am some superannuated 40-something wishing I was a hipster – despite what at least one friend definitely thought when he read that first question. I do love film, for many reasons, but the most modern digital cameras surpass it in most ways, at least for an Antarctica visit. So why do it?
I wanted to write that a glacier is like a living thing, because of the noise it makes, that jarring, creaking sound of ice grinding against ice. But living is the wrong word because any given glacier today is dying. This was only a small one, but once it was bigger, and there is no going back.
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Remember when you were a kid and someone taught you to count the seconds between the lightning flash and the thunderclap to work out how far away the storm was?
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Feel the need to trim down a bit? Try this hike. I went in weighing 74kg. Seven days later, I was 62kg. In between, I’d lugged 30 kg up and down mountains, through rivers, across snow fields and volcanic plains. I’d eaten anything I could lay my hands on, including fish served through my tent window by an Icelandic child in the middle of a downpour. We saw sun, wind, rain and snow, just on the first day. And in all that time, I only had one shower. It was three minutes long and cost about five bucks. Welcome to the Laugavegur – Iceland’s famous and awesome trek.
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July 2006, Beijing: The legendary hard seat on Chinese trains.
We’d waited and waited and tried and tried but just couldn’t get sleeper tickets. How bad could the “hard seat” be? I mean, it has a cushion, right? The trip’s only 23 hours – no worse than flying from Sydney to London. As is so often the case, here was another great example of “famous last words”.
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“Good morning, everyone. Good morning!”
Her Canadian voice was my favourite wake-up call, piped into our room each morning usually pretty early. The gruff Russian guides never seemed to do this; this was probably to the benefit of all aboard. Everyone wants to avoid waking up on the wrong side of the bed, but in Soviet Russia, wrong side of bed wakes you. So, no Russians. Sometimes it was the up-beat young American guy and one time, the three guides named Sarah scared us all by doing a freaky trio. But the Canadian was my favourite, her tone always perfectly setting the scene for another great day.
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Sometimes you want to be way off the beaten track. Miles from civilization. Not another human in sight. Like in March 2020, with Covid-19. Well, if you live in a big city and don’t own a car, you’re pretty much down to reminiscence.
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Let’s face it, camping rules. Once you get away from the city and everything that comes with it – work, devices, lattes – and sink into the nature around you, the rhythm of early starts and early nights, waking to the noise of birds and bugs, you’re always glad you’re there. It doesn’t matter if you’re bivvying solo on a high ridge in winter or with other people at a beach. The beauty is getting out there and leaving everything behind.
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Some things defy easy explanation. My trip to Antarctica was at once overwhelming, frantic, fascinating, confusing and, it must also be said, in some ways strangely disappointing. I’d wanted to go for a long time, but felt no release when I got there; I was as prepared as I’d been for any journey, but came back with more questions than answers.
We raced across the high desert in the morning sun. The salt flats were far behind but the scenery here was almost as bold and extreme: bright blue sky, dry desert, and high volcanos.
Apart from sand and rock and drug smugglers, there were plenty of llamas, vicunas and even flamingos…
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