Southern most Post office.

This afternoon’s adventure was aboard the zodiacs exploring the waters around Goudier Island in Port Lockroy.
Our zodiac was driven by Dom, an Australian geologist, which meant we had a running commentary about the rocks, glaciers and history as we cruised slowly around the island.
Goudier Island is famous for its small British base known as Base A, built during World War II as part of a secret British operation to maintain a presence in Antarctica. The base later became a scientific station until 1962 and today it has been restored as a museum and the southernmost operational post office in the world. Thousands of postcards are mailed from here every summer by visiting travellers. (But we never went ashore).
The little island is also affectionately known as the “Penguin Post Office”, and it doesn’t take long to see why. Around the buildings and rocky slopes live a lively colony of Gentoo penguins — roughly a thousand birds on an island barely bigger than a football field. 
From the zodiac we watched the penguins waddling around their rookery, completely unconcerned by our presence. Every now and then one would launch itself into the water beside us like a tiny torpedo.
Wildlife wasn’t limited to penguins. We spotted a couple of seals resting on the rocks and even saw a leopard seal cruising the bay, clearly on the hunt — a reminder that life here is beautiful but also brutal.
The scenery was spectacular: scattered icebergs, polished rock islands, and glaciers spilling down from the mountains of Wiencke Island into calm Antarctic water. In the distance our ship, the Fridtjof Nansen, looked almost tiny against the scale of the ice and mountains.
It was only about an hour on the water, but it felt like we had stepped straight into a nature documentary.
Another unforgettable Antarctic experience.Read more