On the 6th of April 2005, cousins Jamie Mackenzie and Ben Wylson set off on their bikes on a journey which will take them to over 50 countries and to every one of the worlds great continents, all without the use of an aeroplane.
Friday, December 29, 2006: The Antarctic Diary
1st Entry: 26th December 2006 - In Commonwealth Bay
We have arrived at Cape Denison, East Antarctica, site of Mawson's historic huts and, 'home of the blizzard', officially the windiest place on earth. Today the wind was a katabatic, force 10, and howling down off the Antarctic plateau into Commonwealth Bay where Sarsen lies at anchor bobbing in a micro-storm of mini-giant waves and white-horses. There is a wooden cross on a grey, rock-strewn hill, a memorial to the men under Mawson's command who didn't make it home. The sun has been shining today and the skies are crystal clear. It will stay like this all night because it literally does not get dark. I went to bed at 1:00am and it was just as light then as it is now (4 o'clock in the afternoon). To starboard there are gargantuan snow cliffs. If you take a walk on the top-deck - the un-sheltered, windward deck - it is so cold that before long you can't feel your face at all and after a couple of minutes, numb lips prevent you from speaking properly, making you sound like a deaf man talking. Thankfully the winds have abated and we are waiting for a call from the second officer to lift our bikes aboard the launch to go ashore. We have successfully collected four stranded French scientists who are on board now. I've not met them yet. The men have been waiting to be collected from the ice for some time now after a fire started on board a ship which had been sent to pick them up, forcing the French to abort the mission. The relief ship limped back to Hobart leaving the scientists to endure more loneliness and extreme cold than they had bargained for. Sarsen came to the rescue.
Jamie just came into the mess and said, "We're not going ashore tonight, the wind has got up again; it's too strong for the tender." There is always tomorrow. Something to look forward to... although sometimes we worry that we will not make it ashore at all. It is gale force on five out of seven days here. When ashore, we have been told that on windy days it is impossible to walk around, you have to drag yourself on your belly with ice axes. Tomorrow will be our last chance... We simply must ride our bikes in Antarctica!
2nd Entry: 28th December 2006 - Riding on Ice
We've done it, we are the first cousins to ride bikes in Antarctica and almost certainly the first round-the-world cyclists to have cycled in East Antarctica, perhaps even the first to ride on the continent. Speaking of continents, we have clocked up our fourth, there are only three to go. We have broken the back of Free Wheels East! It's all down hill from here. You should've seen it! I had to use my bell when inquisitive Adelie Penguins ran into my path. The weather was perfect and cycling wasn't too difficult, a bit like riding on crusty sand. Neither of us fell off and we even managed a bit of a down hill ride. It was so cold! I don't think it has really sunk in yet: we have been to Antarctica and ridden in the footsteps of great explorers. It is truly one of the most marvellous things that has ever happened to us.
3rd Entry - 28th December 2006: Swimming at minus 1
The French scientists turned out not to be French, or scientists at all, but Australians, five of them -not four!- all decent fellows and welcome fresh company. They had been working for the Australian government on the restoration of the nearly 100-year-old huts at Cape Denison. There is talk of landing again at the French base for east Antarctica, but it looks like they are going to deny us a landing... The Emperor Penguins have moved on, so there is no chance of seeing them. We could be leaving for Tasmania tonight...
One of the guys on board is a freelance journalist. He may be selling a picture of us on the ice with our bikes to the major Australian papers with our story... It could be out this weekend, or perhaps sooner.
Wait a minute, just got the call from Jamie for a swim in the sea... but it's snowing outside!
HOLY COW!! I'm back! I'm alive!! There were defibrillators handy, life rings, people waiting to haul us out should anything go wrong. It costs $200,000 a head to call out the emergency services. Last year a 45 year old man died with the shock of the cold after jumping in.
Jamie went first, a confident jump. We'd already watched three go... I was getting nervous. Their faces -Jamie's included- showed expressions of sheer pain upon surfacing. As heads re-broke the surface I can only describe their faces as panic- stricken. Before I'd had a chance to ask my shocked-looking cousin how it was, he was off to the pool to warm up in warmer water. It was my turn… It all happened so quickly... I stood there on the wooden platform above the habitat of the deadly Leopard Seal, the southern ocean slopping beneath me. Fresh water freezes at 0 degrees, salt water freezes at minus 2 degrees. This water was minus 1, so cold that my heart could easily have stopped. I screamed "*&$*****%#%INGGGG HELLLLLLL", at the same time jumping for the water. I don't remember exactly what it was like, must've been in shock. I think it was painful. I was underwater looking up at the people on the wooden platform. I could see everyone looking down at me, I could see the icebergs! The water was crystal clear... Then I felt an upward lift. Thai hands gripped me, lifted me to the surface and I slid onto the wooden dive platform. I got up quickly and ran, hollering with exhilaration, gasping at the icy air to the pool where there was a congregation of elated swimmers. Next stop sauna! We’d done it, swum in Antarctic waters in the presence of icebergs.
4th Entry: 29th December 2006 - Homeward bound
We could be in Hobart on the 3rd of Jan, or maybe even a day earlier. We are already on our way home! Should the weather hold and we survive the ferocious 50's and roaring 40's a second time I estimate we'll be in Melbourne selling more books in 6 days' time.
Sunday, December 24, 2006: Happy Christmas from the icebergs!
A humpback whale just broke the surface of the water with its barnacled back and blew air in a steamy plume high into the morning. I can hear ice bouncing, scraping and clonking its way along the length of the hull. These chunks of ice which brush the ship are known as 'growlers' by those crew with experience of sailing in arctic seas.
We are cruising through an ice field. There is a 60-metre wall of ice on our port beam which stretches in both directions as far as the eye can see. This is not the mainland but an iceberg. Around this temporary island smaller bergs float. Fog envelops us, but on occasion the sun breaks through creating small pockets of brilliant white. Where the ice meets the sea there is a sliver of blue as though an artist has taken a brush dipped in clear summer skies and swished it across the waterline. The iceberg we are sailing parallel to is over 80 miles long, ten miles wide and 500 metres of it extends below the surface. The sea is a sloppy soup, full of fragments of ice like desiccated coconut. In places the ice has formed a blemishless, oil-slick-like membrane over the surface of the water.
Today is the day before Christmas Eve. This is the way Christmas is supposed to feel - cold and white, with warm edges. For a moment I thought I could hear the beautifully melancholy notes of 'In the bleak mid-winter' sung with high, resounding melody, sailing toward our ears from King's College Cambridge, England. It is quite a contrast to last year's Christmas when we sat on a tropical beach in Koh Tao, Thailand, drinking mango shakes in the shade of palm trees.
For all those who are attempting to contact us via e-mail, we are unable to access our FWE account on this irridian satellite system. We are sending our updates to members of the family who publish them for us. We will be dealing with the backlog when we return.
And finally... If you are an Australian, go and buy Harper's Bazaar. You will see a photograph of Ben and Anna in amongst the rich and famous. We have also been photographed for Vogue. I'm not sure whether that is out now or out soon?
: Macquarie Island: home of nine million wings
At 6pm in the evening of Saturday 16th December we cast off our lines and set sail from Hobart, bearing south-east 1500 km, closing daily on latitude 55 degrees south. The weather was fair but the swell from the west was relentless and progress slow. The temperature fell almost visibly as we parted the Southern Ocean at a steady 10 knots. Grey skies, grey seas; where did the one begin and the other end?
Wednesday morning and the call went up about the ship's decks and cabins: land had been sighted off the starboard bow. Bleak, barren and isolated, a solo entity of newly-formed rock, a lonely scrap of land amid millions of square kilometres of ocean; the one, the only Macquarie Island. At 34 km long with a maximum altitude of 433 metres, it's a pimple on the face of an underwater platform 10 km wide and 100s of kms long. Only 700,000 years old, it's practically brand-new... blink and you'd have missed it coming. Macquarie Island, a World Heritage Site since the 1997 listings and the premier location on earth for viewing the Penguin. Macquarie Island, 'home of nine million wings'.
The higher reaches of land were draped in cloud and mist like the cloth on a table. Steep green and brown mountain sides descending with haste to the beaches of black sand and rock below. The twin anchors were dropped half a km beyond the breakwater in Buckles Bay and a landing party headed by Chief Officer Guy Manthorpe went ashore in the orange tender to collect the island's resident ranger who occupied one of the handsful of ANARE scientific research huts on the isthmus.
Back up on the crowded Bridge, an hour later, we set about quizzing the bearded ranger about the island's surrounding marine life. 'So Hugh, tell us about the cetaceans that we're likely to see in these waters,' said Ben with his concentrating face on. 'Well, just several days ago we were treated to a feeding frenzy about one km off shore by several killer whales... if you're lucky you might even see some today.' The words had barely even escaped the hairy-framed lips before we grabbed a pair of the captain's binoculars and scurried off to the freshly-corked viewing deck. Scanning the area off the port side, we swept the 'nocs' back and forth across the water, pulling our gaze over the sea, searching, searching. Only three minutes passed before... 'There... over there...' said Jamie with shrill excitement. Ben followed his gaze and finger. 'I swear it, by Jove... what else has a slender black dorsal fin a metre high?' Jamie insisted as nothing appeared for several more minutes. Then, about 300 metres off the stern, not one but three fins slowly appeared, effortlessly breaching the surface like stealthy periscopes. 'Oh my goodness gracious me, do my eyes deceive me! Jamie, you're right... three Orcinus orca, a mother and two calves if I'm not very much mistaken - splendid!' We stood in amazement, hardly believing what we were seeing; killer whales in the wild. Orang-utans in the Sumatran jungle were one thing but this, well...this really was something else altogether. So humbling, so emotional. We watched them all the way as they moved gracefully out of sight.
Macquarie Island has an annual average rainfall of over 900 mm that falls on more than 300 days of the year. December alone harvests from the leaden skies a whopping 77 mm of moisture from 24 days of the month. What, I therefore ask you, were the chances of us having a day that was entirely bereft of a single drop? Yet that's exactly we got and as we moved down the coast, futting along at an even 8 knots, the sun came out,the mist vanished and the island was bathed in a halo of gold. We laid-to in Sandy Bay, completely unprepared for what we were about to see...
Once again Guy was at the helm of the Zodiac tender, grim-faced with tiller in hand, speeding us over the water towards the landing zone. Fred, Leanne and a number of the other guests that included the much-lauded and respected polar explorer Eric Phillips were already ashore. There alien forms decked in padded clothing of thermal quality could be seen marching along the beach amidst a sea of black and white objects. We rounded a headland, kelp-covered jagged rock slipping in and out of the water as the swell eased over the top, rising and falling as one sludgy mass. As we drew closer the black and white shapes on the beach took form; penguins, hundreds of thousands of penguins.
For an hour we strolled amongst the unparalled collection of King and Royal penguins. Untainted with a fear of humans, they waddle at one's feet, scratching, stretching, preening, even sleeping. Indeed, if you were to sit beside a cluster, they would approach to investigate. Their pristine orange & yellow decals beautiful and pure, eyes dark, peaceful and observing. It was a BBC wildlife programme and we were in the thick of it!
Monstrous dark shapes like slugs that had taken growth hormones festooned the water's edge. Belching, farting, bulbous bags of stinking blubber and wind: the Southern elephant seal. Imagine you're the size of a pea and being thrown into a bag of putrefying Jelly Babies... look around and be amazed, that's exactly what it was like walking amongst these beasts of extreme burden.
Silently we sauntered, eyeing the wildlife, recording it, storing the sights, smells and sounds, making damn sure that not a single iota escaped our attention. Absolute amazement, complete immersion, utter fascination and total appreciation. It was the day of days.
As I sit here now, several days on in the crew's mess looking out the porthole above my head, I can see a light-mantled sooty albatross skimming the waves; wing tips inches above the swirling ice-cold waters. The ship is pitching a constant 30 degrees; our heading is 177 degrees south, destination Balleny Islands. Visibility is down to 100 metres and there are icebergs and rogue ice sheets patrolling the area. We've just passed the convergence and blue whales are reported to be in the area. It's two days before Christmas and the forecast is snow.
Thursday, December 14, 2006: Sarsen: The jewel of the sea
We said a fond farewell to Fitzroy early last Saturday morning and cycled through the early morning Melbourne heat and traffic to Southern Cross Station. We passed Idibidi and the bench on Brunswick St where the toothless Jimmy and his dog Hercules were already up, staggering and floundering in the wind, being blown about on the pavement like plastic bags. Dustcarts crawled down the otherwise deserted road on either side of the street with their alien tentacles reaching out, swiping bins and swallowing the contents whole. Up past 'The Bar With No Name', over Johnson Street and through the city we went.
Journeying north west to Adelaide, we stole our way slowly for 12 hours on the 'Overland' train, through burning tinder-dry bush and scrub, on and on past Lawson Hills and Leunig Creek. At intervals we'd eagerly wrap famished mouths around scalding 'Mrs Macs' pies and swill gobsful of fizzy drinks through quivering lips. Several movies were shown but they were largely forgetable and sleep was the order of the trip; heads bobbed and banged, necks cracked and twisted. Blinking like a blind melon, we stumbled from the dingy silver tube to see Caroline & Commander Waller waiting on the platform fringes. They were our greeting party and were due to take us for a sumptuous feast at a local eatery; however, aside from our being thoroughly choked to the gunwales with chili-dogs and burgers, the time was getting late and we didn't want to be caught outside in this new land at witching hour.
We made strict arrangements to meet the following afternoon when time was at less of a premium, bade farewell to Caroline & the Commander and made our way north towards 'Outward Harbor' in search of Osborne Wharf where the good ship 'Sarsen' was moored. It was dark by the time we reached the docks and fingering our way through the gloom was a trifle tricky. We weren't prepared for such circumstances and really didn't have a clue where we were or where we were going. Ben stuck his arm out and flagged down several vertically challenged, extremely gormless passers-by to aid us with directions and thus, via various forms of grunting and snorting, we settled upon a route and off we trustingy trundled on the indicated bearing. After cycling for a full half-hour through the docks and burrows, where the locals presumably dwelled, in a complete circle, we eventually emerged at a cross-roads. Left and right were lit by freshly-laid lamp posts but dead ahead was as dark as the black hole of Calcutta. For a moment, as we stood and scanned the area for further clues as to the whereabouts of the 1,500 ton obelisk of a ship, we cursed our luck and thought we'd never arrive that evening. In the end we decided straight over was the best bet and after a kilometre's ride we came to a slow-moving river and there, as we looked along its banks, about 1/2 km up on the near bank, we could make out the glow of lights from the bridge of a pretty big object. The road was potted and gravelly and biking in the dark was a hazardous process, yet we still made it without incident and there in front of us, at long last, were the huge bulkheads of our latest ship...the Sarsen.
It looked deserted, like a ghost ship. There was no one about and not a sound broke the air. It was really quite eerie. Jamie propped his bike up and walked up the gang way onto the deck. Moments latter an Asian girl came out to see what the calling and yoooo-whoooing was about. It transpired that all the officers and large parts of the crew were in town at an Elton John concert.
The granite-floored corridors of the wood-panelled interiors plunged down several decks and on the bottom level, in the bowels of the vessel, we found our quarters. We are sharing a smallish cabin that comes as standard with a couple of bunks, a table, cupboard, sink area, a bench along the back wall, a small porthole and several chairs.
Most of the crew are from Thailand, 22 in all, and we share our portion of the ship with them. The officers are largely from Russian states and a few are from Australia. The captain, Alex, is a jovial fellow and all beneath him seem equally friendly.
We set sail on Sunday afternoon with a modest fanfare of well wishers and guests and slipped out of Adelaide to begin the trip south to Tasmania.
Later that night, around 2am, we hit the Bass Strait and my, how the wind did blow and the waves did crash! The forceful swell pounded the ship broadside with bubbling white-water and high-rollers as we ploughed a stubborn line across the current. Our porthole, although several metres above the water line, was at times thrown entirely beneath the seas as we rolled almost 45 degrees on to our side. Throughout the ship there were bangs, whollops and smashing sounds resonating about the halls and corridors. The engines were slowed to a trot and after being blown slightly off course, we already found ourselves a day behind schedule.
Over the next few days the swell backed off and although we continued to move about, it wasn't with the same violence and we were even able to fill the swimming pool up on deck with sea water.
Life aboard ship is now quickly settling into a routine. We offer our assistance with whatever we might be able to do to help Fred & Leanne, but are always told to 'relax and enjoy the ride'. We sit on deck, read our books, listen to music and at various intervals go back to bed for 2nd, 3rd and often even 4th sleeps! Breakfast at 7am, lunch at 12pm and supper at 6pm. It's spicy Thai food morning, noon and night and we wouldn't have it any other way.
We arrived this morning in Hobart and are already feeling the effects of Land sickness. The world seems to be moving in unpredictable ways and we constantly find ourselves tripping over each other and banging into things. Here we shall stay for several days, then on Saturday afternoon continue south to Macquarie Island.
This life-at-sea malarky really is all splendid fun, don't you know, and it's jewels like this that really make FWE worth fighting for...some things are just meant to be! But, for now, it's time to pluck the Christmas penguin -we've called it Pingo- and prepare it for a basting and slow roasting.
Thank you, Fred & Chelsea, thank you, Leanne and everyone else aboard the ship...where would we be without you!
Tuesday, December 05, 2006: Mackenzie & Wylson of the Antarctic
Around 200 million years ago Australia was joined at the hip to Antarctica and getting there then, would surely not have posed too many problems; one could merely stoll onto it, supposedly. Now, of course, it's sauntered off a few thousand kilometers south and become the most isolated continent and a rather tricky place to get to.
They say that Antarctica is the most beautiful place on earth; they say that visiting it is like going to a different planet; they say that people in Antarctica often talk about 'when I return to the world...' On Monday, 11th December, 'Free Wheels East' will set sail aboard the 'Sarsen' on a 26-day expedition down through the Pacific and Southern Oceans to visit this remote, isolated place...to visit Antarctica.
20 months since we wheeled our bikes out the door of Brook cottage, seven months after arriving in Australia, it's the news we have been waiting to put in to print for such an agonisingly long time.
From sunny Adelaide we'll travel to Hobart, Tasmania before pushing on towards Macquarie Island -home to 100,000 seals and four million penguins- and from there on south to Commonwealth Bay, East Antarctica; 'Home of the Blizzard' and reputably one of the windiest places on earth.
There's no masking the fact that we are thoroughly bloody chuffed and darned excited at the prospect of being in Antarctica for Christmas and the New Year and already the vocals are being charged and primed for hearty, rum-fuelled renditions of 'Silent Night' and 'Away In A Manger'. It will be a white Christmas this year, folks.
The Sarsen
The 'Sarsen' was built in 1970 as an Atlantic Research Vessel, was refurbished in 1986 and most recently in 2006. She's a 63.95 metre-long ship with a gross tonnage of 1,658 and is now an 'intimate charter vessel' with an ice-strengthened hull that sails to some of the most unique, exotic and fascinating destinations around the world.
For more information on the Sarsen visit www.sarsen.com.au and visit http://www.icetrek.com/index.php?id=66 for our itinerary.
Friday, December 01, 2006: Equipment sponsors!
Nike ACG
Our clothes were worn, ripped and stained. I did not have a pair of socks without holes in both heel and toe -I will not go into the state of my underwear. With the exception of the 18 Goorin hats supplied by Stomp Fashion and my Dita sunglasses -also supplied by Stomp- I was something of a vagabond, wearing clothes that over time have been crisped by sun and reduced to mould by monsoon. None of my dear old garments smelt pleasant and all were a long, long way off presentable. Jamie's wardrobe was in a similar state, until... Nike ACG (All Conditions Gear) decided to sponsor us cousins with over $4000 worth of extreme-weather clothing. They gave us shoes, socks, jackets, t-shirts and trousers... My only complaint is that they failed to provide new underwear! Nevertheless, we have avalanche protection built into our jackets (sensors sewn into the garments making you locatable in the event of an avalanche or landslide) and, everything is Gortex. Our new kit is very well designed and subtle; no grotesque logos plastered anywhere. They are going for the North Face / Helly Hansen market I think. But here's the best bit -a total surprise I must say- Nike ACG actually consider the environment when manufacturing their gear! They use organic and recycled fabrics and have cut their emissions by a staggering 16%. Well done Nike!
Other news in brief
1. There are various other massive sponsorship deals in the pipe-line.
2. We are hopping to board a ship to Antarctica from Adelaide in the next few weeks but once again we are practising the art of not getting carried away with mere possibilities.
3. More meetings are being held with producers regarding the filming of the FWE second leg.
More on all this soon.
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