It took us a week to leave Buenos Aires, following our Antarctica trip, and we reminisced about the wonderful trip we had had and the great people we had met. We set off again in the second week of January heading towards Ushuaia (for the second time, but this time with Ruby), the most Southerly City in the world along Ruta 3.We made it in 10 days, covering 2,500 miles along very long straight roads! We spotted a lot of wildlife along the way, scores of guanacos, hundreds of wild ostrich type birds, armadillos and road runners.

Along the way we had some great stops: we drove to Balneario el Condor, where we wild camped on the cliff tops, which houses the biggest parrot colony in the world. It has over 35,000 nests in its cliff faces and we watched in awe as thousands of parrots flew around and burrowed into their nests in the cliff face. It was incredibly busy when we got there as it is peak holiday season in Argentina, however we had the place to ourselves after sunset and had great views over the Atlantic coast and of the parrots from our roof tent. In the middle of the night the wind really picked up and we were both awoken as it whipped around the roof tent. We decided to move at around 3am, running around outside in the wind in our PJs, winding the tent down and laughing manically (well Jen was!) We drove a few hundred metres down the road to a more sheltered spot and managed to grab a few hours more sleep, waking up to a calm morning!

We also briefly stopped in Puerto Madryn  to get a belt tensioner and serpentine belt for Ruby from a wonderful  landy mechanic called Jorge. He was a lovely man and we gave him some landy gifts that we had received from other people along the way. We had to go to the ATM to get some money out to pay him, and when we returned-he rushed around his garage pulling out loads of gifts for us from stickers, to a large chopping board which he had made with "Landrover Patagonia" etched on it!
We visited Reserva Punta Loma, home to sea lion colony and cormorant rookery and watched the sea lions on the beach. We also visited a small town called Gaiman, which has a strong Welsh heritage from the 1800s. We treated ourselves to tea and scones in a traditional Welsh teashop.6 cups of tea and half a dozen scones later-we rolled ourselves out!

We drove a great gravel road to Cabo Rasa where we camped for the night. The following day we were driving and spotting wildlife along the way and we stopped for Gav to take some photos. Unfortunately, he misjudged the  drop out of the landy to the floor and ended up badly twisting his ankle, which swelled up like  balloon! I took over all of the driving and helped him to get to the loos etc at the campsite for the next couple of days! That afternoon we went to Cabo Dos Bahias, which had a large colony of magellanic penguins which we walked  (Gav hobbled) through on a raised walkway.

We also camped at a few petrol stations along the way. In one we camped by the air machine, expecting that no one would want to fill their tyres with air during the night! Wrong! There was a steady succession of night time visitors to the air machine, resulting in an interrupted night`s sleep! The following morning we showered in the garage, as a lot of them have proper showers. Now maybe it was because I was tired from the night before or maybe it was just me, I managed to leave the knickers I had taken off in the leg of my trousers , whilst wearing clean ones after my shower. As I went into the busy garage to return the shower key, my pants fell out of the bottom of my trouser leg!! With skill akin to that of David Beckham, I kicked them into the air, caught them and swiftly shoved them in my wash bag!

On the way to Ushuaia, we had to cross the border into Chile and back into Argentina again, with all the border processes that involves. We got stamped out of Argentina, gave in our temporary import permit for Ruby, got stamped into Chile and received a temporary import permit for Ruby for Chile.. We had to repeat it all in reverse some hundred or so miles later when we went back into Argentina.

At last we arrived in Ushuaia, the end of the world! It is flanked on one side by the Andes and the Southern ocean on the other. Here we met a fantastic British (and Yorkshire) couple, Amy and Guy, in their landy, Hugo! They have been travelling South from Alaska over the last 18 months so are in the final few months of their trip. We all wild camped in the car park overlooking the Beagle channel and then spent the next couple of nights camping in the Tierra Del Fuego National Park, where we did some small hikes (Gav rested his ankle) and a couple of great BBQs!

We sadly said goodbye to them as they needed to head North and Gav ad I wild camped for a couple of days on Estancia Harberton, about 50 miles South East of Ushuaia, taking in the scenery. Here we were accused of stealing a motor biker's  stash of firewood, when all poor Gav had done was gather firewood he spotted lying around for our fire! It turned out that the biker had gathered it  and left it in sort of a pile, although it was nowhere near his tent. We could not stop laughing after he purposely strode over to  us saying "have you taken my firewood?" before marching off and collecting  more!

We returned to Ushuaia for a couple of days, as we were awaiting the return of MV Fram ,our wonderful Antarctica ship. We wanted to introduce her to Ruby so she knows where we spent Christmas and New Year without her!  The first night we spent back in the car park overlooking the Beagle channel, however it was so noisy that we decide to find another spot for night 2. We found a great spot about 5km out of town on some cliffs overlooking Ushuaia and  the Beagle channel. We knew the Fram was due in early morning so we expected to see it in port. It was a much quieter spot until about 5.30am when I heard a loud thump. I had no idea what it was however about 10 minutes later, a woman knocked on our roof tent and shouted.  I opened the flap and she told us someone had had an accident. When we got out and went to look-a man had driven his van over the side of the cliff , although thank goodness it had not gone all the way down. The police and ambulance were on their way and a few people were helping so there was nothing we could do. He was stretchered into the ambulance and off he went to hospital. And then, under the morning sunshine, the Fram appeared around the corner, sailing towards us down the Beagle channel! We got some pictures of Ruby and Fram and then drove back into Ushuaia , following the Fram down the channel!

What a morning! Now we will start to head North towards the beautiful  national park of Torres del Paine.
 
 

We flew from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia with our fellow passengers on a charter flight, taking about 3 and a half hours. On arrival, we had about 3 hours to spend in Ushuaia before boarding the ship. Ushuaia is regarded as the Southernmost City in the world, located on a wide bay with a mountain range to the North and the Beagle channel to the South. We will be returning here with Ruby, as we plan to drive down when we collect her from Buenos Aires, so we spent most of the time taking photographs of our wonderful ship-MV Fram which was waiting for us anchored in the harbour. We also spotted Houdini-a white van belonging to Jason and Maria of van nomads and left a note on the windscreen, hoping we could meet up for a few minutes. We last saw these two in Ecuador, they are driving from New York to Ushuaia, so were at the end of their journey. We were delighted to meet up with Maria before we boarded the ship and she waved us on our way!

Neither of us had ever been on a "cruise" before and did not know what to expect. We knew that it was not going to be a mainstream cruise, the entertainment was going to be provided by wonderful Mother nature and this suited us both down to the ground. We were so excited to board the MV Fram, named after the ship that carried Roald Amundsen to the south pole before Scott. She was beautiful. The observation lounge had comfortable sitting areas at the top of the ship and large panoramic windows, which gave us incredible views of nature. The huge restaurant provided the same amazing views. Our Captain, Rune Andreassen, who we later labelled Captain fantastic, welcomed us on board and introduced us to some of the crew, who we grew to know and love over the next few weeks. We then had our first fantastic meal and later settled down in the observation lounge as we headed out of the Beagle channel. I was hyper excited and nearly delirious when I spotted whales blowing and breaching not far from the boat. I lost all power of intelligent speech, shrieked "Animals" and caused the first of many stampedes across the ship as people ran to spot them!

The following day was spent at sea as we headed towards the Falkland Islands. We had a daily programme delivered to our cabin each evening by our wonderful cleaner, Jose. On sea days-there would be a series of lectures or talks delivered by our inspirational expedition team and in between we would fit in eating, chatting and going out on deck to spot the wildlife. On our first sea day we saw a lot of sea birds following the boat, such as the Black- browed albatross and the giant petrel.

We then arrived at the Falkland Islands,300 miles to the East of the South American continent  and 580 miles North of the Antarctic. The Falklands consists of two large islands, East and West and 740 small islands and islets. Our first stop was West  Point which lies off the north-west tip of West Falkland. The ship anchored and we were taken to shore in a series of small polar cirkel boats. We did a small hike to Devil`s nose where we saw the beautiful landscape of the cliffs and our first of many penguins! We saw Rockhopper penguins, many of whom were looking after their new born chicks or incubating their eggs. It was a privilege to get close to them and watch, as they fed their chicks, protected them and generally went about their daily life. Amongst them was a large number of Black-browed albatrosses who were also feeding their chicks or incubating their eggs.

There were a couple of land rovers (one formally belonged to the governor of the Falklands and still had the attachment on the bonnet for the flag) which were transporting those who struggled to walk, up and down the hill. We got chatting to their lovely drivers, Alan and Jacqui, who kindly invited us into their house which is the oldest house on the Falklands. We went inside and found our expedition team secretly having tea and a selection of homemade cakes! We were invited to join them and had the best cup of tea since leaving home-PG tips! 3 cups later, we had to leave and Jacqui very kindly packaged me up some tea bags! We will most certainly stay in touch with these lovely people and their face book page is West Point island-Falklands. That afternoon we had our second landing of the day at Carcass island-where we did a 10km walk to and from Leopards beach. The scenery was stunning with beautiful white sandy beaches and we were rewarded with a number of Gentoo and Magellanic penguins.

As a British overseas territory, the Falklands has many land rovers. We needed spare parts for Ruby so we had already been in contact with John from Falklands 4x4 located in Stanley, the most southern land rover dealership in the world! The following day, we docked at the pier in Stanley, the capital of the islands and whilst the other passengers went off on various trips or walks, Gav and I made our first stop at Falklands 4x4 and met John. John was brilliant to talk to and we bought a load of spares including shock absorbers, brake pads etc to squeeze into our luggage! We hope to stay in touch with John, who also shared some of his personal stories about being held hostage at Goose green in the Falkland's war, when he was a child. We were also really lucky to meet Tony. We got chatting as he had a defender land rover and we told him about our trip. Tony was so kind and offered to take us in his landy on a tour around Stanley. This was one of our highlights of the Falklands-it was great to have a locals viewpoint of the area and Tony was a knowledgeable and interesting man. We went all over the area and suddenly Tony told us that the landy we were in had belonged to Prince William when he was stationed on the island!! We went off road and visited some of the battle sites from the 1982 Falkland`s war-we saw Mount Longdon and  Mount Tumbledown, amongst others, and saw machine guns posts and remnants of weapons. We went to the Falklands war memorial and the statue of Maggie Thatcher, and all of the other main tourist spots as well as other places that Tony knew. We loved it and cannot thank Tony enough. He gave us a real insider's view to life on the islands. When I told Tony I had worked in criminal justice he took us to the prison on the island which houses 18 inmates! Before we got there we saw one of the prison guards who was supervising the prisoners who were doing community service. I had a great chat with him and enjoyed meeting him.

Stanley is full of British influences-with union jacks, red phone boxes, British style pubs and supermarkets full of British brands! We bought 2 cans of heinz baked beans (not seen since leaving the UK!) and a box of Yorkshire tea bags for our onward travels, much to the amusement of our fellow passengers!

 (We left the Falklands determined to return one day-as the scenery, wildlife and people are incredible. The following 2 days were at sea as we headed towards the island of South Georgia. We had some interesting lectures on seals , penguins, photography and the explorer Earnest Shackleton. We arrived at South Georgia on Gav`s 45h birthday. The scenery was breathtaking. We landed in the morning at Fortuna bay, named after one of the first whaling ships in the area. This was packed full of wildlife-including hundreds of fur seals and pups, wonderful king penguins and their chicks and elephant seals. There was a massive King penguin colony along the shore with literally thousands of penguins. We spent a couple of hours wandering along the beach, watching the amazing birds and animals. In the afternoon we landed at Stromness, home to 3 deserted whaling stations and King penguins, Gentoo penguins, fur and elephant seals. Gav had a great birthday, topped off in the evening with a cake and singing by the lovely waiting staff!

The next day we landed at St Andrews bay and this was one of our favourite spots from the whole trip. The scenery was spectacular-with the snow covered mountains of the Allardyce range, some 200metres high, towering over the beach. There were 100-150,0000 pairs of king penguins (the largest colony in the world), pottering around, swimming, making a noise, coming to take a closer look at us etc! There were also some massive elephant seals on the beach, waiting to moult, and burping and farting!! There were also plenty of fur seals, who can be aggressive with humans and who can cause some nasty injuries. We had been taught to raise our arms above our heads and shout stop-if they came for us. Sometimes people forgot and tried to run away but they would chase you, so it was not recommended! One went for me at St Andrews and Gav said he could hear my "STOP" from the other end of the beach and not only the seal stopped but all the other people as well, it was so loud!

That afternoon we all went out on the polar cirkel boats for a short ride around Ocean`s harbour where we saw the wreck of the Bayard, a ship built in Liverpool in 1864 and wrecked in South Georgia in 1911.The ship was covered in tussock grass and blue eyed shag birds.

We spent Christmas Eve at Grytviken on South Georgia and had a really special day. We visited the grave of Ernest Shackleton,  who we had learnt so much about on this trip and I toasted him with some whiskey as is custom and practice. We also explored the old whaling station there and saw penguins and fur seals (2 tried to get me this time!) The highlight of the day, for me, was the lovely Christmas Eve service that we all attended in the church at Grytviken. Norwegians celebrate on Christmas Eve and as it was a Norwegian boat with a Norwegian captain, this was a special day. We sang carols in three languages (English, Norwegian and German) and our captain led a short service. It was simple and very touching. We then spent the evening on the boat where we had a toast and a party and were visited by santa! In the middle of all this it had started to snow outside which added to the festive spirit.

 hlyThe following few days were largely spent at sea heading towards Antarctica. The nights started to lengthen until it did not really ever go dark and the scenery began to change with our first sightings of icebergs and ice covered islands. We had a quick stop at the Orcadas scientific station, an Argentinean base where the staff welcomed us and showed us around. They research continental glaciology, seismology, sea ice zone and meteorological observations. We also saw some chinstrap and Adelie penguins. We stopped next to Elephant island, where Shackleton`s men were marooned for 4 and a half months awaiting rescue, barley surviving living under 2 overturned lifeboats. That evening-the boat was surrounded by tens and tens of whales (fin whales-the second largest species) and Captain fantastic decided we would go off course and follow them, stopping when they stopped and observing their movements! The whole boat went crazy-we were all running around the decks shouting "whales", taking pictures and simply enjoying these majestic creatures. What a treat and we all applauded our fantastic Captain when we started back on course a couple of hours later.

We woke up to the most spectacular scenery I think I have ever seen as we came through the Antarctic Sound. It was full of huge tabular icebergs-some had penguins on-as we slowly glided through. We anchored outside Brown Bluff and this was to be our first landing on the Antarctic continent. As we stepped ashore I gave thanks for being lucky enough to have walked on all of the 7 continents on earth. This felt really special. The brown cliffs soared above us and the shore was home to numerous Adelie penguins, Gentoo penguins, kelp gulls and kelp petrels. Here some of our group witnessed a skua  (bird) attack and kill a penguin chick and we watched as it devoured it. We watched and laughed , as the penguins stole small stones from each other to place on their nests and squawk to try and keep other birds at bay.

The following day we  landed at 2 Antarctic islands-Half Moon bay where we saw our first and only Macaroni penguin and Deception Island, Whalers bay where there was another derelict whaling station. Here I was one of the thirty or so passengers out of 230 who did the polar plunge! This involved running into the sea in my swimming costume at icy cold temperatures and running out again! For good measure I also swam round  for a very short while, before getting out. It was the coldest I had ever known and Gav and my lovely new friend Anne, had to help me get dressed as I was completely numb! I then got on the polar boat back to the ship and had a series of cold, then lukewarm and then hot showers to warm myself up!

The next day might have been the best day ever! In the morning we anchored outside Cuverville Island. The weather was spectacular-bright blue skies and pure white snow and ice. The island was mountainous and covered in ice and glaciers. It was home to huge numbers of gentoo penguins-which we observed walking around on penguin highways (channels they have forged in the snow) and we also saw whales feeding and breaching from the shore. We also saw them after lunch from the boat and one swam right under the boat-and we could see it clearly as went past. We had another landing at Neko harbour in the afternoon. First we sailed through some more stunning scenery, into the Andvord bay which is surrounded on all sides by mountains and alpine glaciers. Neko harbour was nestled at the bottom of the bay  and we saw  more penguins and part of a glacier cave in.

We then went on a 2 hour polar boat cruise with 8 other people. It was brilliant and we got up close to our first leopard seal which was resting on a small iceberg. We also saw hump back whales which were blowing, feeding and flicking their tails out of the water as they deep dived. We were so close to them in the smaller boat and it was another one of our highlights. We then spotted the sister ship of the MV Fram, the larger Midnatsol. We knew it was coming to meet us to swap some supplies over. I asked Adrian, the guide if we could go and meet it in our tiny boat. He hesitated, then said shall we go? We yelled "Yes" and so our driver went racing towards this huge boat. When we  got there it towered over us and we did a loop around it, waving and shouting at their passengers who looked on in amazement at this small bunch of people  who were seemingly going bonkers!
We had a lovely BBQ ion board that evening which rounded off a superb day!

On New Year`s Eve day our names had been drawn to go kayaking at Port Lockroy! We had to wear special clothing and were dropped off at a tiny shore to get into the double kayaks. This was a superb experience, kayaking around the peaceful waters, spotting penguins nearby in the water and the odd crab seal on slabs of ice. We then landed at Port Lockroy, which has the penguin post office-the most Southerly one in the world where we sent some post cards and enjoyed watching more penguins and their chicks. There was also a small museum which recreated life when it was a British base.

Then Captain fantastic took us though the Lemaire channel-a spectacular 7 miles long and 1 mile wide channel full of steep cliffs, glaciers, and floating ice. It is often blocked by icebergs so we slowly navigated through huge blocks of ice and lots of floating ice. Nearly every [passenger was on deck admiring the wonderful scenery and marvelling at how close we would get to the icebergs and towering cliffs. and  We nearly made it through when we were thwarted at the end by some huge blocks of ice that were impossible for us to pass through. We did a 3 point turn and headed back. Then the captain stopped and they announced that we would all get a 30 minute small boat ride around part of the channel. This was an unexpected treat and we got up close to the ice bergs and went through the polar ice. To cap off a wonderful New Years eve, our superb crew put on a show and a party. They did a crew show, which contained a lot of talent and some less talented acts! Our expedition team did a George Michael tribute medley and I got pulled up to join in along with my lovely friend Anne and then poor Gav was pulled up too! We jitterbugged our way though the song, I completely threw myself into it and there is video  evidence somewhere! I also got pulled up by our waiters who were in drag dancing to pokerface, but thank goodness afer a few minutes everyone joined in and then we had such a great party! We danced, sang karaoke and marvelled at the light outside. The Captain joined us at 11.30 to count down the New Year with us. By this stage I was giddy as a kipper and much to everyone's amazement, as Captains are rather aloof figures, asked him to dance to Dancing Queen! How could he refuse? He was a great sport and woodenly danced for 5 minutes or so before making his way off the dance floor to do the countdown to midnight. What a way to see in the New Year, dancing and singing, whilst it is still light outside, in Antarctica! Oh not forgetting the whales who made an appearance outside!

The next couple of days were spent crossing Drake`s passage , a notorious rough crossing connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific. We were lucky and had a smooth crossing, arriving in Ushuaia relaxed, happy and tired! We had reached 65.11 degrees South (Just short of the South Pole-damn-will have to go back for that one!) and sailed 4,053 miles. This was our best trip ever! We cannot recommend Hurtigruten and her staff highly enough-they were outstanding and if you ever get the chance to go to Antarctica then just go, don`t think about the cost, just go because it is like nowhere else on earth. It is the highest, windiest, driest, coldest and  most beautiful continent. At times we had to pinch ourselves at what we were seeing and experiencing. We are now back in Buenos Aires, ready to collect Ruby and start the next part of our journey. Ruby is ready to get going again, we might need a little more persuasion as we are still dreaming about Antarctica!

Someof the pictures were taken by our brilliant ships photographer-Dominic Barrington.
 
 

Some of the pictures above were taken by our wonderful ship`s photographer-Dominic Barrington.