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| Maiviken Cove |
[Last night was not a good night – I have a racking cough and sore ribs made worse by the coughing. A visit to the ship’s doctor to check out my bruises and bumps and also to check my lungs. Nothing sinister other than a little bronchitis and a bunch of bruises. The joys of travelling - hah!]
This afternoon we landed at Grytviken, the administrative centre of South Georgia. Before that, however, the ship dropped off large group of walkers at Maiviken Cove to walk via an high overland pass to eventually meet the rest of us at Grytviken. After the dropoff, the ship was repositioned in Cumberland Bay and Howard picked up the government officers. We underwent a stringent biosecurity check before being allowed to go ashore to what was once a thriving whaling station.
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| Top R is King Edward Point, the administrative centre for South Georgia |
We wandered through the rusting remains of the old processing station around which penguins and seals made themselves quite at home. Then we finally straggled up to the cemetery where Ernest Shackleton is buried. Coincidentally he died almost 101 years to the day – 5 Jan 1922. A large group of us gathered with tot of whiskey while Nina, the ship's historian, gave a fitting tribute to 'the Boss' and we all drank a toast to this great man – it was quite moving. Frank Wild, Shackleton’s second in command is also buried here.
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Ernest Shackleton’s grave
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Back on-board things were starting to wind up for a wild old NYE party but not before a curious crowd gathered in the Citizen Science Centre on board to look at what Russell had collected in the water earlier that day. It was quite fascinating and a few science enthusiasts were born. The Centre is not quite finished but there were a couple of microscopes with cameras attached and we had fun identifying the beasties wriggling under our gaze.
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| The Citizen Science centre |
At dinner things started to really wind up and it got rowdier as the night wore on - we headed for bed around 10pm. By all reports the celebrations kept going until 1am or later. There were a few sore heads next morning!
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