1. Section:GDN TL PaGe:3 Edition Date:160116 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 14/1/2016 19:29 cYanmaGentaYellowblack
The Guardian | Saturday 16 January 2016
3
Feeling intrepid?
Seven of the best long-haul adventures
on a ship for months at a time. “We’ve
not had time to go stir-crazy yet,”
insisted José, as Natalia appeared,
smiling, at his side. “I have to bake
my own bread, home-school my
children … and, of course, prepare the
lighthouse for the celebrations.”
The 400th anniversary will be
marked with a televised “parade
of sails” around the island. It will
be broadcast across the world and
attended by Chilean president Michelle
Bachelet and Dutch dignitaries; a lot of
eyes will be on that lonely lighthouse.
As cruise destinations go, Cape
Horn, surrounded by notoriously
descended a winding cliff-side
staircase, incongruous against the
bleak backdrop. This was José Aguayo,
a second sergeant in the Chilean navy,
two weeks into a year-long posting as
Cape Horn’s lighthouse keeper. In his
pressed black-and-whites he reminded
me of the Magellanic penguins that had
waddled up to us on the beaches of the
Tuckers Islets a few days earlier.
The romantic might imagine
this solitary sailor’s situation as the
epitome of isolation. But José had
chosen this posting as a way of being
with his wife Natalia and their two
young children instead of being away
To mark Cape Horn’s 400th anniversary this month, James Draven voyages there, meets
the world’s most southerly lighthouse keeper, and keeps his breakfast down, just
Tasman
Sea
Mount Earnslaw
Muddy Creek
Rees river
Queenstown
Glenorchy
Kingston
Jamestown
New Zealand
10miles
▲ Splendid
isolation …
Cape Horn has
attracted thrill-
seekers for
400 years
Falkland
Islands
Argentina
Chile Cape Horn
Punta
Arenas
The end of the world is nigh
I
don’t get seasick. Not under
normal circumstances. But as
I stood in the wheelhouse of
expedition cruise ship Stella
Australis, the perfect storm
of a dawn shore excursion,
followed by a bellyful of cooked
breakfast – plus a “warming”
mug of hot grog – conspired to leave
me feeling a little nauseous.
There was also a very literal storm
brewing, causing the horizon to see-saw
dramatically as we navigated Drake
Passage, the most notorious sailing
route on Earth, named after Sir Francis
Drake, who was blown off-course here
during his 1578 circumnavigation
of the globe. The stretch of water
between Cape Horn, the southernmost
tip of South America, and Antarctica is
many a mariner’s graveyard.
The 29th of this month will mark
400 years since the discovery of
Cape Horn, when a Dutch ship, the
Eendracht, made the first recorded
voyage through the passage. Captained
by Willem Schouten, he named the
island after his home town of Hoorn.
My expedition was a little less
arduous: a four-night cruise from
Punta Arenas in Chilean Patagonia
to the world’s southernmost city,
Ushuaia, in Argentina. It would take
in excursions to glaciers, sub-polar
forests and penguin colonies, and land
on Cape Horn itself. Australis is one of
few cruise lines that allow passengers
to set foot on the island; though
whether it can sail through Drake
Passage depends on the weather.
We’d arrived at Isla Hornos by
stealth, sneaking in via the fjords
and glacial alleys that riddle the
Tierra del Fuego archipelago. The
sea was uncharacteristically calm as
we climbed into the inflatable boat,
lifejacket-clad, and watched the
legendary rock, a sheer 425-metre
rocky promontory, bob toward us.
A stark figure strode across its
windswept hilltop, his black frock
coat flapping in the breeze as he
Trans-Siberian safari Russia
The Trans-Siberian railway, from
Moscow to Vladivostok, celebrates
its 100th anniversary this year, and
there’s a wide variety of holidays along
the classic route. On one group trip
with Steppes Travel passengers ride
the train route but use other modes of
transport (boat, plane, car) to meet
locals and see little-visited villages
and areas off the line, including Lake
Baikal and the Ural mountains. That
trip comes at a luxury price but an
independent Trans-Sib trip in second
class and booked independently can
cost a tenth of that – see seat61.com/
Trans-Siberian.
• An independent 10-day return on the
Moscow-Beijing route costs from £450; for
booking, try realrussia.co.uk. Flights from
Gatwick to Moscow cost from £64 one-
way with easyJet; Vladistock to Heathrow
with Aeroflot costs from £248. The 18-
day Trans-Siberian Safari with Steppes
Travel (steppestravel.co.uk) in June costs
£4,765pp, including both flights
Island hop with a difference
Indonesia
Mixing culture and action, this new
trip involves trekking through the
volcanic landscapes of Indonesia
and climbing five major volcanoes
on Java, Bali and Lombok. Add in
some whitewater rafting, a couple
of nights’ camping, visits to sites
such as Borobudur Temple and some
speedboat transfers, and travellers will
be gagging for the R’n’R at the palm-
fringed beach of Sanur at the end.
• Land of the Living Mountains 15-
day group trip with KE Adventure
(keadventure.com) costs from £2,215pp,
including flights, transfers, guiding and
some meals
Bargain DIY trip Jordan
Conflict in the Middle East has meant
many travellers have nudged Jordan
off their wishlists, but there has been
very little trouble there and tourists
treacherous waters and blasted by
gale-force winds known to sailors as
the Furious Fifties, is not the most
obvious holiday choice.
Nevertheless, this ship
accommodates up to 210 passengers
and my fellow travellers were a diverse
bunch: a couple of French-Canadian
pastry chefs; a Swiss backpacker;
a pizzeria owner from Iowa; a
Californian socialite and her retired
husband Jim, cousin to Dick Cheney,
he told me. Despite en suite showers,
à la carte dinners, and endless canapés
and cocktails, it felt as though we were
on a genuine adventure.
Since the Panama Canal opened
in 1914, allowing vessels to take the
shortcut through Central America,
“rounding the Horn” has become the
preserve of thrill-seekers. We saw
bus-sized chunks of ice break off vast
glaciers, the reverberant cracking
sound following afterwards like
thunder. Condors soared above the
world’s southernmost forest.
As we milled around on the Horn,
chatting with José, a member of our
ship’s crew arrived hurriedly to tell us:
“If we leave right now we can actually
sail around Cape Horn. Conditions are
only calm enough a few times a year.
Let’s go!”
Back on the bridge, I finished my
hot rum and watched third officer
Ignacio Vasquez chart our progress on
paper with a pencil and dividers. As
we moved out into Drake Passage, the
wind picked up, the ship began to roll,
and my stomach churned. Crockery
crashed and various objects slid off
tables. Ignacio marked a line out of the
chart and into the void of the southern
margin: we were off the map. My head
spun. I closed my eyes, took a deep
breath, and reminded myself it wasn’t
the end of the world.
• The cruise was provided by Australis
(australis.com) whose four night all-
inclusive trip on the Stella Australis
costs from $1,440pp and runs from
September to April
Paddle from inn to inn Belize
The island-rich coast of Belize is home
to one of the first guided lodge-to-
lodge stand-up paddleboarding trips
in the world. Guests paddle through
the South Water Caye Marine Reserve,
exploring mangrove channels and
reefs, watching out for stingrays,
manatees and pelicans. Evenings are
spent at small, family-run inns, where
the day ends with snorkelling and
watching the sun set from a hammock.
• A seven-day Coral Islands stand-up
paddleboarding group trip with Island
Expeditions (islandexpeditions.com)
costs from £1,490pp, excluding flights,
and runs on selected dates until March.
United Airlines flies from Heathrow to
Belize City from £430 return
Claim a virgin summit – or two
Mongolia
A trip from Secret Compass offers
not only the chance to join a one-off,
once in a lifetime expedition, but also
to summit two unclimbed 13,000ft
peaks, one of which is still unnamed.
The group trip, from 5-19 June, takes
places in the remote Altai mountains
in the Siilkhem national park, near
the borders with Russia and China.
From climbing exposed ridges to
tackling glaciers and pioneering new
routes to summits, this is a demanding
trip, but will earn the intrepid proper
bragging rights.
• The 16-day First Ascents in the
Mongolian Altai trip costs £2,995pp,
secretcompass.com. Flights from
London to Ulaanbatar cost from £475
return with Turkish Airlines
▲ Far-flung
frolics …
paddleboarding
in Belize (left)
and tea break
in Nepal
Continued on page 4
You may be some time
Two polar cruise ships in the Antarctic
have turned into floating galleries,
exhibiting photographs from Captain
Scott’s doomed expedition of 1910-13.
oneoceanexpeditions.com
Marine and clean
On a new marine eco-tour near Auckland,
New Zealand, guests explore the coast
while protecting it: cleaning up beaches,
planting trees, and spotting dolphins.
Day tours from £18, bluevoluntours.com