Planet Antarctica

No people. It was like another planet. A monochromatic planet where animals show little or no fear of humans.

For those who have dreamed join Dale on 20 Dec at FACEZ Fine Art Studio for images, stories (some true) and practical photography tips. One night only, 12 places, bookings essential. $25. Book with Margaret on margaret.n@ozemail.com.au or 9430 6422. Hear Dale while the snow and penguin poo are still fresh.

The Beagle Channel

(above: Simon the Penguin and birdwatching guru)

After a lifeboat drill I prayed for fine weather. 68 persons in that in tiny lifeboat for 18 days at sea was not exactly an appealing idea.

Still no Canadian permit and the troops were getting restless. Then Boris the Boss announced that we would be setting sail down the protected waters of the Beagle Channel, permit or not. After four hours of sailing down the channel if the permit had arrived we would continue south to Antarctica. If no permit had arrived from the Canadian authorities we would turn east to South Georgia. The natives were reseless.

(early morning on board Akademik Ioffe in Ushuaia harbour)

We gathered on the decks with binoculars and cameras and 400mm lenses trying to spot albatross, but mainly trying to spot the permit. Just what are those Canadians doing besides making maple syrup.

The chef brewed up coffee with a dash of the doings and fresh ginger cookies. But happy feet had given away to shuffling feet as we chugged at 12 knots along Beagle, Only an hour to go before the intersection.

With an hour left on the clock Big Bad Boris swung from the yardarm like Johnny Depp and proclaimed that the permit had just been received by carrier pigeon and we bound for Antarctica.
We shot so many albatrosses after hearing that news. There's the old myth that killing an albatross brings bad luck to sailors. Well we shot maybe a hundred or more that afternoon. The WAndering Albatross has wingspan approaching that of a Cessna 152 but a little more elegant. They swoop and dive and stalk the ship waiting for what?

I snuggled into my cozy bunk that night, porthole open above my head and doona pulled up. The menace of Drake's Passage lay ahead but at this stage I was happy that I was Antarctica bound.

Antarctic Bound (not quite)

The seafaring port of Ushuaia was surrounded by snow-capped mountains. It is also home to one of the best camera shops I've come across in South America. I bought a pair of binoculars then we lunched at an Irish pub.

We met the other 49 passengers at the Albatross Hotel (I thought albatrosses were bad luck for seafarers.) The One Ocean machine kicked into action and we bussed 5 minutes to the harbour. I sat next to a Pakistani named Zac, a New York doctor. He wanted to talk cricket. I told him I was out of touch but believed Julia Gilliard may be named the next Aussie captain.

Up the gangplank and into cabin 506. A great little cabin, functional, rock solid (or at least I thought so). Private facilities and the comfiest bed I've had in 4 weeks.

Then the bad news. One Ocean announced that the permit to enter Antarctic waters had not been signed off by the Canadian authorities. We had to spend the night tied up to the wharf. The good news was that I didn't get seasick.

Leguna Amarga

We stayed at an estancia in Patagonia at the Leuna Amarga. I couldn't help thinking I was on the film set of Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings'.

The monochome is a stitch of four images using Photoshop CS5s Photomerge. It took 30 seconds to shoot and 30 seconds to stitch. Patience is not high on my virtues so if its not fast I'm not interested.

Tips for stitching:

• Shoot in Manual mode
• Manual aperture
• Manual shutter speed
• Manual focus
• Manual white balance
• Overlap images by 30%
• Use a 50mm to 70mm lens range
• Carry a block of chocolate to reduce stress

Peter Lambert

'Pare! Pare! Pare!'

'Stop the bus'

Peter Lambert (Pedro Lamberto in Spanish) was first off the bus with his 300mm Nikon prime lens running down the hillside almost as fast at the guanaco herd.

Guanaco

The guanaco is native to Patagonia and a member of the camel family. A dominant male may have as many as thirty or forty females to service in his herd . He has his herd and his territory. And he protects both fiercely.

Single, solitary males stand alone on hilltops eyeing off the herd of females and awaiting their chance to challenge.

If guanocos are captured and fenced they cease breeding so they are left running free.

Flick

Felicity 'Flick' Hughes is one of the reasons this tour exists. Flick first introduced me to Peter Lambert from Peregrine about ten years ago. And so the seed was sowen.

We went on a morning bird shoot. But a 70 kph wind had blown most of the birds to Africa. The wind came swirling down off the Andes making life difficult for photographers and nigh impossible for birds.

Lago Grey

Getting rugged up for a walk to the boat seemed like an overkill. The wind blew at 60kph and the boardwalk to the boat rocked underfoot.

For Glenda and Steve, this was their 'honeymoon' visit to Patagonia and the Lake Grey Glacier.

The glacier has two fronts and has retreated significantly in recent years.

Julia Gilliard's carbon tax will fix all that of course and we expect to see an advancing glacier in the next 2 or 3 million years.

Laguna Amarga

"Beep-beep-beep' on my mobile at 5am, 4 degrees outside the bunkhouse. Damm! My back ached in the cold and I fumbled around in the dark. Shirt, fleece, jacket, neck warmer, ear warmer, beanie, petzel head torch, camera bag, tripod, 3 day old socks and boots and trousers I guess.

Five of us boarded the Chilean station owners station wagon. He set his fantastic music running/ 'What CD is that?' I asked. He showed me an old cassette tape - Vangelis Portraits. There was a glow in the sky. I had never felt better in years.

So many photographers are uni-directional; ie they look in just one direction. I try to make a habit of looking

NSEW constantly. This second shot is to my right at ninety degrees. With my ear muffs on I still had Vangelis ringing in my ears. No cold, no wind, no pain. That would come later and be settled by 2X Panadol Osteo. I guess you have to suffer a bit for art. I love Patagonia!

TRAUKO

Trauko, the wild Patagonian guide was something from left field.

Mountain climber, adventurer, ardent environmentalist and wild man numero uno.

He pointed out a craggy, snow-capped mountain in the Andes that looked absolutely perilous. He told us how he climbed to the peak 10 years earlier but took a week to find a way down.

At one stage he threw 500 feet of rope down and a violent updraft prpelled the rope back up into his face. Then, when he did lower it, he climbed down the 500 feet of rope only to find it was too short and he had to climd all the way up again.

At dinner one night I asked Trauko how was it that the bonnet of his ute was so battered. His story went on for more than an hour but ended with him being towed at 130 kph with a broken windscreen in blizzard conditions. Trauko is not for the feint-hearted. A man among men and enough macho to scare the bejeebers out of every woman he this side of the Andes.

These Boots Were Made for Walking

When Peter warned us our boots would fall apart in Patagonia we all thought he was joking. Not true, Flick's, Angela's and Marg's boots gave up the ghost, souls asunder, bare toes inching the snow.

Marg donated her boots to Trouko, the Patagonian wonder guide for recycling. They're likely to end up as a house brick in Trouko's new condominium. While Angela and Flick's boots had an ignominious departure in a bin at Laguna Amarga Estancia.

(apologies to Nancy Sinatra)

Photo Finish

The alarm rattled the Chilean wine dreams from the night before. I put on my beanie, neck warmer, ear warmer (you need that with ears my size), four layers and boots and carried my 11kg camera bag to the top of a small hillock behind the hotel. Peter Lambert was the solitary shiverer when I arrived.

Within five minutes a dazzling visual display presented itself. The shots here are straight out of my camera - not one single second of Photoshop! 50mm prime Nikon lens, 1/30 sec f11 200 ISO.

Back at breakfast we watched a re-run of the Melbourne Cup and divvied up the sweep. We had to use Photoshop to separate the hairs on the horse's noses to determine the winner - it seem sFrench horses have more nose hairs.

Lake Pehoe

Tolkein country - your imagination can go wild here. With snow-capped mountains as a background and our hotel on an island the only access is via a footbridge.

Lunchtime Pano

L-R Steve, Peter (Summit), Ana Maria (local guide), Angela. The Fuji X100 has this little pano button. You sweep left to right and it takes about 40 pics and the camera stitchesthem together as you shoot. Amazing. I just said 'Act like blocks of stone'. The red wine for lunch is for medicinal purposes only.

Torres del Paine

Our AirLan flight touched down with a 60kph tail wind (that's correct - not a misprint a 60kph TAIL wind!). Sitting in theaircraft broadside to the buffeting wind it felt as though we were still flying.Ana Maria met us and it was fabulous to renew friendship with the Queen of Peruvian guides. The first hundred or so k's of our northward journey was a rock 'n roll trip with the wind pushing our small Mercedes bus all over the road. The rolling, windswept steppes were dotted with sheep with lambs nuzzled against their mums for protection. Properties of more than a million hectares are not uncommon and station homesteads were few and far between.

Slowly the undulations became hills. The hill became larger with each bend in the road. Then we sighted distant mountains with menacing snow, capped peaks.

Hosteria Lago Grey did not impress at first sight. This was our accommodation for the next two nights. A dusty gravel road, a rusted battered sign and the relic of a rusted out bus greeted us.

Looking like a cross between an abandoned youth hostel and a Russian re-education camp I wasn't all that inspired. Never judge a book by its cover. Twenty metres to the right of reception I witnessed the

most amazing view from any hotel at any time in my life.

I was surrounded by snow-capped mountains, a

white-capped lake and an awesome glacier of ancient times. If that wasn't enough in

the foreground was a huge, opalescent blue iceberg. It could not have been positioned more if one had tried.

Two hundred frames later I traversed a short boardwalk to our hotel room. This was a room the eco-environmentlaists dream about;

huge picture windows overlooking the lake, glacier and iceberg enveloped in a shroud of the snow-capped Torres del Paine. Artistically designed with two huge beds with fluffy doonas and large overstuffed pillows, changing areas for hikers, centrally heated and wi-fi just for starters.

Peace and quiet, in pristine wilderness and an iceberg on my doorstep. As a photographer I could want for little more.

Chilean Students Revolting

Chilean students have now been on strike for six months. Maria,our guide, suggested excessively high tuition fees at Santiago's 76 universities was the main reason.

It was Friday morning - the day before the long weekend when we set off on our half day tour of Chile's capital. We noticed police with water cannon and heavily armed vehicles and milling students - part of the 150,000 predicted for today's demonstration.

However, what really stood out in my mind was the sheer volume of graffiti. It targeted the Education buildings and the wealthier buildings in the university areas. It was for all the world to see and use.

Long Flight, Long Legs - Santiago, Chile

Long plane journeys are not my favourite cup of tea. Back in 1964 I thought nothing about sitting for 21 hours on an MacRoberston Miller Airlines flight from Perth to Halls Creek. Yes, 21 hours aboard an MMA DC3 flight with nine stops en route and a cold boiled egg as the main meal. But I was 19 years of age, filled with adventure and bullet proof.

But now its 2011 and the 16 hour flight from Sydney to Santiago in Chile on LAN airlines, with a stopover in Auckland knocked the stuffing out of me a bit. I slept a bit, as best I could cramped up in cattle class. At 5'4" I've got a lot of sympathy for passengers with long legs. Two of our group are Peter at 6'2" and Steven at 6'4". But I still enjoyed the flight - I watched 'The Bucket List; with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman and ended up teary in the last ten minutes of this would-be classic.

But the highlight of the trip was the stopover in Auckland. All the Kiwis were celebrating their World Cup Rugby victory. There are banners and signs and lamb chop sized smi

les. A very tall blonde sashayed past several of our group. She had long extremely shapely legs encased patterned black stockings and black stilettos. Her micro-mini black leather skirt made the long legs even more evident. (God, I thought, how would she go in Seat 56J on Flight No M800. All heads turned to follow the legs as they sashayed past. The only problem with this moment of cerebral pleasure was Miss long Legs was not a Miss but a Mr. I had spotted the legs a few minutes before the others and had noticed the shaved, pancaked face and the protruding adam's apple. So much for that fantasy!

We all arrived safely in Santiago. Charles' luggage only just arrived - half an hour after every one elses. We had to pay the US$61 'Reciprocity Fee' to enter Chile and the delay through Customs and Immigration was almost as bad as Australia.

Qantas and God willing

Its like the night before Christmas - only half packed - anticipation building. Got my thermals - hell - I doubt I'm going to make the cover of vogue wearing these.

Qantas have cancelled a few hundred flights so we don't know what our chances are tomorroa but we're following Peter's secret plan and arriving at the airport 3 hours early. God, if those Qantas Security guys catch me in my thermals I doubt I'll ever see the light of day again.

The last frantic scramble

3 sleeps to go - and so much to do! Not even sure which Qantas flight we will be catching so hopefully between us we will have enough Qantas Club passes to get us into a little bit of comfort if we have to wait a while! Looking forward to seeing those penguins!

One Month to go

It is only 4 weeks until we leave, and I don't know about anyone else, but the only way I am going to get everything ready is to purchase most things online and hope they are OK! All weekends are booked up until we leave on Wednesday 26th October - and I am already dreaming of the penguins! Not so sure about the cold - can only imagine what it is going to be like - the coldest I have been is either Hobart (generally) or 1 night in Uyuni, Bolivia, prior to visiting the salt lakes. Actually, Ana Maria was there too!!

Welcome

Welcome to the Patagonia-Antarctica tour led by Peter Lambert, Dale Neill and Ana Maria Meneses. With about six weeks to go people are starting to think about gear and preparations.

Personally I've got a bit of a hectic schedule - heading off leading a tour through Turkey in three days and a brief sojourn in Berlin and Dresden. taking lots of rubber bands and sticky tape to keep this body together.