Polar Voyages

by Gray, Gordon

  We slowly worked our way down the hillside, through the tall grass, towards the sea. We could then stop and see the vast extent of the colony. It stretched across the valley to the opposite hillside and dropped steeply down towards some cliffs and a windy sea. The wind funnelled up the valley, giving the birds ideal conditions for take-off and landing. At first we could not see that many birds, but as we watched, we realised that most were well hidden and sheltered by the tussock grass. When they moved or took off we could see that there were probably thousands of birds here, covering a wide area of the valley and hill and the steeper areas towards the cliff that we could not properly see. As we watched, returning birds fluttered and wobbled in the air, wings extended and balanced on the gusty wind as they tried to hover. Then, when they were over their own nest, they folded their wings and fell out of the sky onto the mound, in a form of controlled, feathery crash.

  As we looked more closely, we realised that there were other birds there too, almost totally hidden down in the tussock grass. These were cheeky looking, red-eyed, rock-hopper penguins and they shared the colony with the albatrosses. No more that eighteen inches tall, they barely came up to the height of the albatross’s nest mounds. However, both families of bird seemed happy to share the colony; the penguins busied their way about their narrow tracks and rocks, and the albatrosses slept on their nests. The rock-hoppers, with their red eyes, looked like hung-over, black-suited teddy boys, with fancy souvenir plumes stuck into their caps as they ‘strut their stuff’ around the colony. While the albatrosses flew up here the rock-hoppers would have to walk all the way. The albatrosses appeared dignified and refined and above it all. Their plumage looked like soft velvet, and their black brows gave them a superior and disapproving look as the tourists and penguins shuffled by their nests.

  Blacked Browed Altatross.

  We returned to the ship via the Napiers’ house above the jetty where, as at Carcass Island, afternoon tea was offered to all.

  Port Stanley

  It was a dull morning with low cloud as the Fram sailed into the outer harbour of Port Stanley. We could see beautiful, deserted sand dunes and golden sandy beaches – we later learnt that were they all still full of land mines! Having passed the beaches, the ship swung to port and passed through a narrow rocky gap into the wonderfully sheltered inner harbour. As we entered the bay we could see Stanley stretching along the shore line. A town of what looked like two parallel streets. The houses were mostly single storey and new ones were being built at one end of the town. Stanley grew up as a watering, provisions and repair stop for sailing ships in the 1840s. Its location near to Cape Horn meant that many ships, having survived the Cape, were able to seek refuge there and repair any damage before sailing on up the Atlantic. The opening of the Panama Canal and the arrival of steam ships meant that Stanley was much less visited and the locals turned to sheep farming for their livelihood.

  We went ashore and were met by Gerald. Gerald had been introduced to us by a friend who had visited the Falklands a couple of years before. He was a seventy-year-old Falkland Islander and is the fifth generation here. One of his ancestors was sent to Australia on a convict ship for theft, but the ship only got as far as the Falklands, where it was wrecked. Gerald occasionally takes visitors on small tours of the islands. Fram was only in port for a few hours so Gerald took us first to Pleasant Cove, which we knew better from the TV news as Fitzroy. This is where the RFAs Sir Galahad and Sir Tristram were bombed in the war by Argentinian aircraft. Fitzroy is the name of the local settlement but the area of water, where the ships were bombed, is called Pleasant Cove.

  Rockhopper penguin.

  We looked at the memorials that have been built on the shore: one to the Welsh Guards, and the one to the RFA crew members who lost their lives in the disaster. The memorials have been built overlooking the stretch of water where the ships were hit. They are by a small cove which has a gently shelving beach, and is where a lot of the survivors came ashore in lifeboats or life rafts. If this cove had not been here there does not appear to be anywhere else they could have easily got ashore as the inlet is bounded by low cliffs and rock. That the disaster should have happened at all is still a contentious issue. Why were two fully loaded troop ships sent to this enclosed area of water in broad daylight and without any air cover? The Argentinian soldiers saw the ships masts above a hill as they sailed along the coast and raised the alarm. It was quite moving to try and replay the newsreel films of the disaster and overlay it on the calm, sunlit, pleasant stretch of water we saw before us.

  Gerald showed us the mountains around Stanley where the Argentinian troops had dug in to defend the town. He drove us up to Mt Tumbledown, a desolate and empty place, and we saw the remains of a wrecked Chinook helicopter from the war. We were shown the hills that we had heard and read about at the time as the battle moved ever closer to Stanley. We stopped at the foot of Mt Harriet, where the Royal Marines of 42 Commando staged a night attack on the 350 Argentinians guarding the top. The temperature was -5 degrees Celsius and the marines had walked over about five miles of peat cuttings before they were able to start the attack. They captured the hill after five hours of fighting, with the loss of two lives and twenty-four men injured. They took over 300 prisoners. We drove up onto Wireless Ridge, for a view over Stanley. Gerald also mentioned that the radio reporter on Wireless Ridge who famously said ‘There are white flags flying over Stanley!’ was wrong, and it was actually someone’s sheets on the washing line.

  As well as the distances between where they landed at San Carlos and Stanley, the ground itself was totally non-user-friendly. Vast swathes of loose jagged rocks covered the whole area and stretched across the hillsides in great swathes. Where there was no rock, then there was tussock grass which, when trying to move across it rapidly as the British soldiers were, would easily snap an ankle or leg if a soldier put a foot wrong. Yomping across this stuff with 50 or 60 pound bergens on their backs, various ammunition belts and pouches as well as carrying a rifle must have been an awesome task.

  The lasting impression of the Falklands was one of the vast size of the place. It all sounded so ‘local’ on the television, but the distances between these hills and Stanley were huge. I had always imagined that Mount Pleasant, the new airport and main UK base, was situated just above Stanley. In fact it is forty miles away. Most of the tarmac roads on the Islands today were just rough, unmade tracks at the time of the war. It is only the army’s presence that has generated the money to build proper tarmac roads.

  The day had started out cloudy, with low mist and drizzle. As the day wore on the weather improved and the sun eventually came out. Seeing it in sunshine or cloud made no difference – it was an inhospitable, barren and tough terrain. Visualising how the soldiers managed to fight their way across the open ground and then climb up these mountains at night to attack the Argentinian positions made us appreciate their toughness and bravery even more. Overall, while the principles of defending your own territory against invaders must be upheld, regret for the waste of young and brave lives, on both sides, is the natural reaction.

  South Georgia

  We left the Falklands and headed for South Georgia, a two-day sail away to the south east. Again the wind was astern and a following sea made for a pleasant passage. One afternoon, as we were sitting watching the ocean slide by the window, we were lucky enough to see two fin whales swim side-by-side close to the ship. Their backs broke through the top of a wave as they blew and we could clearly see their size and the small fin on their backs. One of the naturalists had seen them too, and confirmed that they were fin whales. Fin whales are the second largest whales after the blue whale.

  After a couple of days sailing we arrived at South Georgia, probably the most beautiful sub-Antarctic island in the world. First sighted in 1675 by an English sailor, it was 1775 before Capt. James Cook was the first person to land here and he claimed it for Britain in the king’s name (King George). It was Cook’s reports of the vast fur
seal colonies that started the rush south by hunters after their pelts. When the fur seal population had been decimated, the hunters turned to whales. There were, at a peak, a total of six whaling stations on South Georgia. By the time the last ones left in 1964, the Southern Ocean whale population had been reduced to an estimated 4 per cent of its original size.

  We arrived at the remote Fortuna Bay on the north east coast. Fortuna was a British whaling ship that was wrecked here. As we entered the bay the weather was dull and cloudy, but by the time Fram had dropped anchor at the head of the bay, the sun was out. High, snow-covered mountains surrounded us, steep cliffs rose from the water and sea birds wheeled around the ship. In the distance, at the foot of a glacier, we could see a colony of penguins.

  The Shackleton Hike

  I had volunteered to go on a hike, organised by the ship’s expedition staff, called the Shackleton Hike. This hike followed the final few miles of Shackleton’s famous, desperate trek across South Georgia in 1916 to seek help and rescue for his men still stranded on Elephant Island, down in the Antarctic. Shackleton and his two companions had already sailed, with three others, in a small open boat from Elephant Island to King Haakon Bay on the west side of South Georgia. However, Shackleton recognised that neither the boat, nor the rest of the crew, could survive any more days at sea trying to sail round the treacherous northern tip of the island to the east side, which was where the whaling stations were. The nearest whaling station to where Shackleton landed was Stromness, and so he and two companions climbed, walked and slid, nonstop, for thirty-six hours over the Allardyce Mountains, which until then had never been crossed let alone mapped, to reach Stromness whaling station and safety.

  Arrival in South Georgia.

  We were to attempt to walk the last ten or so miles from Fortuna Bay, over the hills and down into Stromness. For me this was an emotional event. Shackleton has always been my lifetime hero and I had read his account of the trek many times. To be able to follow his footsteps, when he was literally on his last legs and near to death, and to see exactly the sights he saw as he neared his final destination, was awesome.

  There were twenty-six volunteers for the hike and six expedition staff. We were taken ashore to the starting point for the hike. It was stressed to us that once we were ashore and moving, there was no going back, as the ship was sailing as soon as we had set off so that it could sail round to Stromness to pick us up. Once we had started, we had to finish.

  The shore of Fortuna Bay was home to a big colony of king penguins, and quite a few elephant seals and fur seals dotted the shore around the colony. The king penguins had many brown fluffy chicks with them, which had already had grown to the same size as their parents.

  After safety briefings and again being told that this was it, if we wanted to go back, now was the time, we set off. The first part of the walk was a stiff climb up the wet and slippery grassy hillside at the back of the beach, which we had to climb in zigzags, with occasional stops to get our breath back. Shackleton described it as a ‘steep snow and ice slope’. We stopped at the top and looked around to take in the scenery. Way down below us we saw the Fram slowly sailing out of the bay. To the west, across a rocky plateau, we could now see the grey, black and jagged pointed forms of the Allardyce Range as it stretched across the skyline. The peaks were covered in cloud, but the snowy lower slopes and glaciers were clear of cloud and gleamed in the sunshine. In front of us and stretching away to the mountains was the vast Fortuna Glacier. Shackleton, and his team of Frank Worsley and Tom Crean, had come over these mountains and worked their way around the glaciers until they had emerged at the Fortuna Glacier. It was while they were on this section that Shackleton thought he heard a steam whistle going off. He looked at his watch. It was 6:30 a.m. If he was right and the whistle was from Stromness whale factory, then there would be another whistle at 7 a.m. to get the men to work. The three of them listened intently. Then at 7 a.m. they heard it. A second whistle. The whistle’s sound carried up and over the mountains. They were almost there and there were people in Stromness to rescue them. It was the first outside man-made sound they had heard since they had left South Georgia eighteen months ago. They skirted round the north side of the glacier and came down off the mountains into Fortuna Bay. They then walked round the end of the bay to the point where we had just landed and began the final section of their hike.

  On the top the ground had turned from grass to loose, broken shale stones, like large pieces of slate, so care was needed to avoid slipping on loose pieces. Where we could, it was easier to walk in the snow-covered areas than on the open ground. Gradually we climbed higher up to a plateau. Here, a halt was called and we sheltered just below the crest of the ridge for a five minute break while everyone caught up and a short rest. From here, the mountains seemed even more impressive and presented a daunting sight. The idea of trying to set off to cross them without a map, or any survival gear was not an attractive idea. Yet Shackleton and his men did it in just the clothes they stood up in and had been wearing for months already!

  The extent of the König Glacier and the huge Fortuna Glacier could be seen. It seemed that the whole of the area between us and the mountains was one vast and treacherous glacier. We could see that the route ahead took us down into a small, snow-filled valley, at the bottom of which was a frozen tarn covered in snow. On the other side, our route climbed up again to a high ridge. We could only discern that it was a frozen tarn, as on its flat surface the ice had a blue tint and darker patches that looked different from the snow on the ground. This was Crean Lake, named after Tom Crean. As Shackleton and his men walked, they were not aware it was a lake until they started to sink through the snow covering the ice and felt it giving way. They hastily retreated to the slopes.

  Crean Lake on the Shackleton Hike.

  On the other side, the ground climbed again up a shale hillside with large areas covered in snow. We spread out to find the easiest route for ourselves. We crossed the ridge and, like Shackleton, imagined that from the top we would see Stromness. However there was yet another ridge a few hundred yards further on. At the top of this next slope, also a mass of shale pieces, we stopped. There, 2,500 feet below us but still far off, was Stromness Bay, basking in glorious sunshine with the mountains of South Georgia stretching away to the south. To the right we could see the buildings and sheds of Stromness whaling station, probably largely unchanged since Shackleton saw them in 1916. To complete the scene, coming into the bay was the Fram.

  Shackleton described this last part of their hike as ‘extraordinarily difficult’. It was mid-winter when he crossed the island and late spring/early summer when we did the hike. Shackleton, and ourselves, were now in a high pass between two jagged, snow-covered mountains, which dominated the pass. A wall of ice and snow wrapped the lower levels of the mountain and sloped straight down to us. The icy wind whistled up from the sea. From here they descended a steep, snow-covered, shale-scree slope to a small plateau that ended in a sheer cliff. Once at this place they searched for a safe and quick way down to the coast. We found the same slopes covered in snow and descended hundreds of feet through deep, ice-crusted snow to the last ridge and cliff. It was tiring work, stepping sideways so as to keep our balance on the steep slope, moving a step at a time, knowing that if we fell we would roll, or slide, all the way down. The idea of sliding down on our backsides occurred to some of us, but the risk of slamming into a snow covered boulder, or totally losing control and flying off the cliff at the bottom, persuaded most of us to try and stay upright.

  At the bottom we stopped on the top of the steep cliff, high above the coastal plain. The whaling station was away to our right, with a flat river plain separating us from it. Once on that it would be a simple walk down the river to the station. Shackleton had the same view, but there was no obvious route down this last cliff. Across to the left they found a river running in the same direction; they followed it, wading through it waist deep at times, to keep moving on downwards. Ha
ving come down the steep river course, they found themselves at the top of the waterfall. The first part was over 30 feet high. They could not go back up to find a route round and the rocks beside the falls were all covered in solid ice, so they decided that the only way down was to go down through the falls themselves.

  Stromness whaling station from the hills.

  They tied a rope to a boulder and lowered each other down, until the three of them stood, frozen and soaked, at the bottom. This was their last hurdle. They then walked, exhausted but exhilarated to have made it, the last 1½ miles to the whaling station and safety. From where we were we could hear the stream and the waterfall across to our left. We were led by the guide across to the left, then we scrambled and slipped down a steep, rocky slope at the end of the cliff until we emerged onto the river plain right at the bottom of the waterfalls. We stood and looked. It was really three waterfalls, the highest one being the biggest, but at over 50 feet high in total, it was a significant obstacle to descend for fit men, properly dressed. For Shackleton’s exhausted and starved team it must have been the final kick in the stomach.

  We walked and splashed our way through the water, across the wide river bed and its plain, and arrived at the now deserted whaling station just as the first of the other passengers were getting ashore from the ship. No-one lives at Stromness now and our ‘rescue’ depended totally on the ship’s arrival. Unfortunately, the whaling station was abandoned long ago and is now totally off limits due to the vast amount of asbestos that it contains. The nearest we could get was 200 yards. However, the structures and buildings would not have changed much since the day Shackleton arrived here. It would have been good to finish the walk at the factory manager’s house, as Shackleton had done. However, it was one walk I will never forget.