It’s been a long time between drinks, but Travel Weekly is back doing what it loves most: exploring this world of ours.

And what better way to kick off our international adventures than a trip to the frozen continent Antarctica courtesy of Aurora Expeditions which hosted Travel Weekly’s editor-in-chief David Hovenden and his better half Travel Weekly’s editor-at-large Nancy Hromin.

In this five-part series, we chronicle our journey.

Getting There:

There’s no question. None! Getting on a plane was exciting. Similarly, there’s also no question, (equally none) getting off our last plane in Punta Arenas all of that excitement had been replaced by what a schlep international travel can be in the “new normal” of international travel. Let me take you through it.

Aurora Expeditions had kindly offered me the trip of a lifetime expedition cruising in the Antarctic. Amazing! For nearly three years I’d been nowhere outside our beloved great brown land, and for a more than sizeable chunk of that three years, I’d not been anywhere beyond the four walls of my own house. Trip to Antarctica? Hell yeah! I’m down. I’m double down in fact!

Of course, then reality kicked in.

No longer can you just grab your passport and head to the airport with barely a day’s notice. Oh no! First, you need to strap yourself in and get busy with paperwork.

Chile was undoubtedly the trickiest of the bureaucracies to negotiate. Visas, mobility passes (sort of like a state-based Covid check-in thing), proof of vaccine, proof of travel insurance, proof of financial liquidity, an international traveller’s affidavit, which must be completed within 24 hours of arrival in Chile.

It’s a process. But hey, make a cup of tea, get organised and get busy. You need a few weeks to get all your forms approved and processed by the Chilean government.

Aurora Expeditions make you jump through a few hoops as well, but this is not seven nights in Bali, this is the end of the earth and you need to be fit and healthy to make the trip. You also need to be Covid free, which is why you must be triple vaxxed and get tested regularly.

Of course, at the time of travel (February this year), there were no flights from Australia to South America. Period. So circuitous are all the suggested routes, you’re travelling for a lot more than 24 hours by the time you touch down in Santiago.

We chose to fly via the US and had to fly Sydney-Los Angeles-Atlanta-Santiago. If you’re familiar with the usual debacle that is entry into the US at LAX, you’ll be delighted to find the crowds are gone and you’ll stroll straight through. So long as you have your medically supervised Covid test within 24 hours of boarding your first flight. Domestic flights within the states are much as you remember them.

In total, 36 hours after we boarded our flight from Sydney, we touched down in Santiago. Remember your affidavit? You’ll be told it’s expired when you arrive. Mercifully, you can do it in a matter of minutes on your phone and the WiFi’s not too bad at the Arturo Merino Benítez Airport.

Then you’re off to another queue for your next PCR test. Usefully, this process is pretty well sorted, and you get to travel to your hotel and quarantine there until the results come in (usually, overnight, when you’re having a very well-earned sleep).

We chose to spend a few days poking around Santiago getting acclimatised (which is well worth the time) before flying on to Antarctic embarkation point Punta Arenas.

If that all sounds horrifying, relax! Direct flights are scheduled from Australia to Santiago well before the next Antarctic season commences, cutting travel times in half.

Anyway, we made it! And this process is bound to become easier and easier and the world opens up to travel once more.

Touching down in Punta Arenas we were met by Aurora’s friendly staff and shuttled to our hotel where we checked in for the night and had our final Covid test prior to our Antarctic journey beginning. You have no idea how good that negative result feels.

Punta Arenas, Chile – Known to be the getaway city to Patagonia, and Antarctica, Punta Arenas is a constantly windswept town in the country’s far south. It was once a very important port city when the Straits of Magellan were a major global shipping route.

Day One:

Our trip, ‘Across the Antarctic Circle’, was a ‘fly/fly’ trip, meaning we flew from Punta Arenas to meet our ship, the Greg Mortimer, at Frei Base on King George Island (part of the Southern Shetland Islands).

This is a great option if you tend to suffer from seasickness as it avoids the three-day crossing of the infamous Drake Passage, some of the roughest oceans in the world from time to time that lies between the tip of South America and the Antarctic Peninsula.

Of course, flying to Antarctica is not a certain thing and reports of King George Island being completely fogged in threw some serious doubts onto departure leaving as scheduled.

Mercifully, a very early weather window opened and we were up at 3am and onto the planes for the short flight away from South America and down to Frei Base on King George Island, Antarctica.

It’s at this point it hits you; you really are in Antarctica and it’s like no place you’ve ever been. It’s a Chilean research station, but also a Russian base and weirdly your phone welcomes you to the People’s Republic of China.

While our luggage was loaded onto two vehicles, one an enormous camouflaged truck, we walked in two groups, covid style, down past the ‘totem pole’ through the Chilean and Russian bases to the black sand beach where we were welcomed by Expedition Leader Floe, the Aurora staff, a cluster of shags and a few gentoo penguins.

We changed into boots, gathered lifejackets and climbed into zodiacs and travelled to the Greg Mortimer, a lovely white expedition vessel, waiting out in the bay.

The first passenger ship to feature the revolutionary Ulstein X-BOW®, this allows the ship to cross oceans more comfortably and efficiently, and with expansive observation decks to bring you closer to the environment, inviting communal areas and unsurpassed environmental credentials, the Greg Mortimer offers the perfect base camp for adventures at the outer limits of human exploration.

The hotel staff made us feel welcome and we worked through the boarding procedures, found our cabins and began to unwind. The luggage arrived soon afterwards. This was really happening.

Cabins on the Greg Mortimer are your private sanctuary with plenty of space to spread out and relax while the stunning scenery of Antarctica slides quietly past your own private balcony.

After lunch in the restaurant, we attended a series of mandatory briefings, IAATO regulations, zodiac operations and vacuuming our gear. Some of us swapped gear for more comfortable sizes, others explored the ship. The snorkelers and kayakers attended their own briefings and collected specialist gear.

All this time we could see the snow and ice-covered islands of the South Shetlands as Captain Oleg Kaptenko guided the Greg Mortimer south down the Bransfield Strait. For most of us, this is our first trip south.

There are 85 of us including 7 Snorkellers and 18 kayakers and from many nations, the United Kingdom (17), the United States (59), Netherlands (1), Australia (3), India (1), and China (4).

Now we are ready for our adventure to truly begin. Tune in tomorrow as we start our push south towards the Antarctic Circle.

Featured image:

Ian Cambata
icambata@travelleaders365.com
President
Travel Leaders 365
www.travelleaders365.com
@travelleaders365