Over the years of working the world I find nothing more satisfying than completing a chapter. And this chapter has been my most challenging. Sitting here in a smoky café in Puerto Natales, Chile I reflect on my early days of the chapter when I arrived in Ushuaia. The streets that were once foreign to me, spending my birthday at the bottom of the world, the constant battle to stay positive as I kept pushing to find work on what was the illusive continent, the people I had met and new friends I had made, the people that helped me.

And of course I reflected on Antarctica. I sum it up as the worst job I have had, but the best continent I have been to. I have been a little disappointed at how negative my blog posts have come across as I have documented my journey. But I suppose that was how I was feeling. Don’t get me wrong I would not change the experience for anything, I learnt a lot from it, and as the saying goes (well something like this) “you learn more from a day of discomfort than a life time of apparent happiness”.

As I sit here in the comfort of this small Chilean town with the freedom to do what I want and the famed Torres del Paine hike waiting for me I wonder if the cruise ship life was as bad as I portrayed it to be. But time is a devious creature that disguises the past events with illusions of good times, like a lady that leaves her abusive partner but then a year later she only remembers the fun times and then gives him a second chance only to realise he’s still a spineless woman beater.

But I’m not stupid, there is no way in the world I would take back the job. But I would like to remember the good times. The goods times of the SPECTACULAR fairy tale white continent that will forever hold a place in my heart.

A place that is the most beautiful place I have been to! I made nearly 20 landings whilst on the cruise ship, I didn’t have time to write posts on them all, but theres only so many posts you can do about comical quirky penguins, belching masses of seals, surreal icebergs and out of this world landscapes. But I left this post as my last, to leave on a good positive vibe. These photos and videos are from Nikau Harbour located in Paradise Bay on the Antarctic Peninsula. It was a beautiful blue skied day, calm, peaceful, we had whales surfacing just 30 metres from the shore, abundance of penguins, ice bergs, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I’ll just let the photos and videos try to do the talking of the place that is the most beautiful place I have been to!