We got an e-mail alert on Rob’s phone on the way from Sarah our Antarctica lady so we were keeping our fingers crossed that it would be good news! Not that we want to sound ungrateful about the internet, but it was extremely slow so with our stomachs full of butterflies it seemed an age for us to wait while the computer loaded our email! Hurray it was our lucky day! They had spaces available for the Weddell Sea trip! Fantastic! We were over the moon! Our trip is 12 days in total, 4 of these are at sea and the rest of the time is spent in Antarctica! We will be on a ex Russian Research vessel which is owned by St. Petersburg Hydro something or other society, has a total of 48 passages plus mainly Russian crew! Good job we’ve been to Russia and had some Russian vodka drinking practice!!!

With big beaming smiles we headed to the bar and somehow the thought of a trip to Antarctica, (a place

I had always dreamed about going to and was now finally a reality) seemed to take away the foul taste of New Zealand beer!!! We all settled ourselves down in front of the big log fire and perused the food menu! It was lovely to be sat in a lovely warm café-bar which had large windows and a magnificent view towards Mount Cook which looked fantastic in the early evening sunshine, then sunset then night time! Before we knew it, it was very dark outside and we were guessing it would be very cold, we ignored this fact and ordered another pint! We’d all eaten and had that warm post food feeling, it was heavenly to be sat on a large comfy sofa in front of a huge roaring fire. Lois went off to the bar and came back with a smile from ear to ear, she had only gone and got us a lift back to the campsite!!! Carlos the Brazilian barman had offered to give us all a lift back to the campsite after last orders, we all breathed a massive sigh of relief and couldn’t believe our luck! Carlos was a lovely fellah, he and