Travel With Us a While Podcast – Episode # 10 – with Bron Hogan
G’day and welcome aboard for another journey of discovery. This week, we’re heading south. Way south. Past the tip of South America, across the wild Drake Passage and into that otherworldly realm of ice and wind and endless white – Antarctica.
And the best part? Our guides are Cindy and Steve, dear old friends from my childhood days in Selukwe (now Shurugwi), Zimbabwe – or Rhodesia as it was back then. Life has taken us all far and wide since those dusty schoolyard days, but listening to them recount their Antarctic expedition felt like reconnecting both with old friends and the spirit of exploration itself.
Their 19-day journey began in Ushuaia, Argentina – the southernmost city in the world – aboard the Professor Molchanov, a Finnish-built, Russian-designed research vessel turned expedition ship. Just 46 passengers, including their old friend, Sheila Moubray and a hearty Russian crew braved the crossing, led by none other than Aussie mountaineer Greg Mortimer, the first Australian to climb Everest without oxygen. You can imagine the calibre of stories over dinner each night!
Crossing the Drake
Now, the Drake Passage has a fearsome reputation among sailors – I’ve been in some rolly seas myself, but even I’d think twice about that crossing. Yet, as luck would have it, Cindy and Steve described a remarkably peaceful passage, although a few passengers were seasick, including poor Sheila. While the Southern Ocean rolled and breathed around them, Dr. Gary Miller, the ship’s biologist, gave talks on seabirds and seals, helping everyone identify the creatures that danced alongside their bow.
Crossing the Antarctic Convergence – where warm sub-Antarctic waters meet the icy southern current – the world around them changed dramatically. The birds were different, the air sharper, the sea a deeper, colder blue. It’s like crossing an invisible frontier into another planet.
Penguins, Postcards and Polar Protocols
One of their first landings was at Port Lockroy, a British base complete with a post office. Of course they posted postcards! Every landing was a carefully choreographed ballet: gumboots scrubbed clean between colonies to prevent disease, lifejackets stacked neatly on the shore, and little numbered tags turned one way or another to ensure no one was left behind. Imagine that – “turn your tag or stay in Antarctica forever!”
From there, the days flowed like chapters of an adventure novel – zodiac rides through ice-strewn bays, humpback whales breaching nearby, and penguins by the thousands, curious and comical and utterly unbothered by their human visitors.
In the Wake of Shackleton
Their expedition followed in the footsteps of the legendary Sir Ernest Shackleton –through South Georgia, past Elephant Island and Cave Cove, the very spots where Shackleton’s men fought for survival over a century ago. Cindy read aloud from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner:
“The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free.
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.”
And just like that, you can almost feel the hush of ice and wind and history hanging in the air.
At South Georgia they visited Shackleton’s grave at Grytviken, where the old whaling station still stands, rusting quietly beneath the snow. There, amidst macaroni penguins and seals, Cindy and Steve reflected on the courage of those early explorers – and the fragility of the world they discovered.
The Smell of Life
Now, I couldn’t resist asking Cindy what it smelled like. I remember visiting a seal colony in Namibia years ago and nearly being bowled over by the stench! Cindy laughed – yes,there were smells aplenty, especially near the elephant seals – but somehow, in that crisp Antarctic air, even the pong of penguin poo seemed part of the experience. “Most of the time you’re walking through it,” she said cheerfully.
Reflections from the Ice
There were moments of grandeur – ice calving from glaciers with thunderous cracks, massive tabular icebergs drifting like floating cathedrals – and moments of simple joy, like learning to say “Bon Appetit” in Russian from the ship’s assistant, Margaret Werner.
Through it all ran the same feeling that Cindy captured so beautifully in a quote she read aloud:
“The Antarctic is the whitest, highest, driest, coldest and windiest continent.
Free of war, without a native population, governed by science and peace.”
Wouldn’t it be something if we could bottle a bit of that spirit and sprinkle it across the rest of the world?
Coming Home
After nearly three weeks at sea, Cindy and Steve returned to the world of colour and crowds forever changed. “It’s so different,” Steve said quietly, “so unbelievable to be there.”
Listening to them, I felt it too – that mix of awe and humility that comes when you stand before something truly vast and untouched.
It reminded me that travel, at its heart, isn’t about ticking off destinations. It’s about perspective. It’s about stories shared over coffee, (or in our case, a podcast mic), connecting dots between lives, and remembering that even on this busy, noisy planet – there are still places of perfect silence.
Listen to their full story on my TRAVEL WITH US A WHILE Podcast.
Until next time, travel well, and be sure to mention in the comments if you have a travel story you would like to share with me on my TRAVEL WITH US A WHILE Podcast.
The ‘tag line’ is Conversations with travellers by land, sea, air and beyond’. I would really love to hear YOUR story. The ‘beyond’ category covers so many different experiences, I cannot wait to hear yours.
