Whilst back home I also had a couple of nationwide radio interviews to get some exposure for the Final Continent Expedition. You never know who is listening; maybe a bored millionaire had a spare $12,000 floating around to send a sea container of disused bikes to Africa.

My first interview with Kiwi TV/radio celebrity Marcus Lush was a bit of a shocker. Well it wasn’t that bad, actually it was going pretty well until he took the piss out of me (gave me shit). So much so that if I was a little boy in the playground at school I would have shat my pants and cried.

Have a listen to the interview here.

If you can’t be bothered listening to the interview, basically Marcus Lush caught me off guard, as I was meant to be asked the usual best/worst/most rewarding job questions. But instead he was like a dog with a bone (up to you what kind of bone the dog has) that wouldn’t stop humping my leg RE the subject of me having not lived in Antarctica. I think because he had made a TVNZ documentary on the reality of living in Antarctica his bone was rather big and he wanted to let me know that my bone was rather small. He believed that I was just being cautious with the truth and that I had just visited Antarctica, and said it would be like Neil Armstrong staying he had lived on the moon.

So now having had time to really think about his question (comes in at 2.19 minutes on the interview), which was “But Hap you haven’t lived there (Anarctica), have you?” I would answer it the following way:

I never set this goal for other people; I never set it with certain criteria to meet, or to impress anyone. I set this as a 21 year old wanting to explore the world, to have a bloody good time, to live life with no regret. And if I’m happy that I lived in Antarctica by living and working on an Antarctic cruise ship then that’s what counts. And I’m definitely happy, as I know that I tried everything in my power to get to Antarctica (you my blog readers know that, check out the blog post I wrote in Ushuaia before I knew I had the job on the cruise ship.
I realise I have made this goal public with my blog and media, but at the end of the day, I set this goal for me.

PS, Writing all this makes me think back to when I was in Ushuaia, searching for work after nearly 3 years of rejection. To all those who wrote to me whilst I was there, it meant a lot, and I again sincerely thank you

PPS: Whilst searching for the above photo I came across these photos, the most amazing sunset I have seen on my travels – unfortunately I couldn’t truly enjoy as I was polishing glasses! (Thanks to onboard photographer Kristine for sharing the photos with me. Oh yeah photo taken in the Lemaire Channel, Antarctica). Cheers everybody!