The Scriffiths

Antarctica is truly the continent of superlatives. It is the coldest, driest, windiest, highest place on earth. It is a place of unimaginable beauty. During one half of the year, in the polar winter, it is a frigid landscape submerged in total darkness where nothing but the most extreme and hidden forms of life remain. But then, during the other half of the year, summer arrives, and with it, light. Through this oscillation between the seasons, a dynamic process of freezing and thawing transforms the continent and its surrounding seas. »

When I was 15, I wrote a small, five item travel bucket list. At the top of the list was Antarctica. Twenty years later, I have completed the list, more than ten years after I ticked off the other four items. So, it was with an enormous amount of anticipation that we embarked on our trip to the seventh, and final, continent. Arriving on the seventh continent Our tour was the 18-day expedition cruise dubbed the ‘Penguin Safari’ with Quark Expeditions, a reputable leader and operator in polar expeditions. »

A little more than a year ago we arrived in Tassie with a plan to live here. Not a very concrete plan. We’d bought a house without seeing it: a small, post-war home that had been meticulously renovated by the previous owners. And painted a delicate shade of blue. We knew almost nothing about the northern Hobart suburb we’d be living in. We weren’t sure how long we might stay, or whether we would like it. »

As time passes and the seasons change, so does the Amazon river. In the wet season, the river can be ten times wider in places than it is in the dry season, and over time, the mighty river carves new paths, creating new bends and washing away forest, and in previous paths devoid of vegetation, new forest begins to emerge. Like the changing river, so does our experience of travel. We oscillate between discomfort and pleasure, between serendipity and banality. »

Our small plane took off from the runway at East Air terminal at Cairns and climbed up into the clouds which were obscuring the view of the reef below. But not long into the flight, the clouds began to dissipate and it was revealed as hundreds of little islands and atolls scattered along the coast in the sparkling turquoise sea. View from the plane Viewed from above, the repeating slices of reef stretching south to north at regular intervals looked like grains of rice lined up on a turquoise field. »