Antarctica is very isolated from the rest of the world. There is no land connecting it to another continent. Instead, Antarctica is surrounded by icy-cold water and some of the roughest seas in the world!
The challenges don’t stop once you get there, however. The water around Antarctica is full of gigantic icebergs, which are dangerous for ships to navigate around. The land is covered in towering ice shelves that are ready to collapse at any moment. The terrain is also very rocky, and any land that has been smoothed out into a beach is usually covered in penguins and seals! Generally, most of the peninsula is also broken up into small islands. All of these factors make it rather difficult to get around down on the ice.
To solve these issues, we used various forms of transport for different situations - each with their own benefits and disadvantages.
First, we flew in an airplane. The Antarctic Peninsula is located on the "South-American side" of Antarctica. As we all live in New Zealand, we first had to travel to Buenos Aires, Argentina from Auckland, New Zealand and then down to the port city of Ushuaia. This is the southern-most city in the whole world!
Then, we boarded our ship. In Ushuaia, we boarded a Quark Expeditions ship called The Ocean Endeavor.
