An epic trip to the world’s largest ice shelf from Australia is ‘the real deal’

I’m sitting on the floor of the “Zen Zodiac” with my eyes closed and my face tilted towards the sun. We rise and fall as the tide belches and burps around us.

Our guides have tied together two tenders in this collapsed sea cave and historian Ben Maddison begins a guided meditation. “No cameras, no phones and 12 people only,” is how he pitches it. He undersold it.

For the 12 of us that signed up, we could never have imagined such a contemplative morning in one of the world’s most untouched places. When I open my eyes, it’s as if I’m peering up from inside a terrarium. A tui bird flits in the rata forest canopy; around us, thick ribbons of pappardelle-like bull kelp twirl as the crystal-clear lagoon swells before sinking again. Every detail feels magnified, like nature responded when we went inward.

The exact whereabouts of my enlightenment is top secret, but I can tell you this “meditation cove” exists somewhere in Musgrave Inlet on Auckland Island, part of a small group of subantarctic isles off New Zealand en route to East Antarctica.

We are just days into a 26-day Ross Sea Odyssey expedition cruise with Aurora Expeditions, aboard the new Douglas Mawson which departed from Dunedin in New Zealand.

In 2025 the Aussie-owned, expedition company co-founded by Greg and Margaret Mortimer 35 years ago launched its first ship in Australian waters, marking a return to East Antarctica for the company after 15 years.

In addition to the company’s two existing luxury ships and well-established Antarctic Peninsula itineraries, Aurora Expeditions’ 2026-27 season offers expedition cruises to East Antarctica departing from New Zealand and Australia.

Itineraries are always taken with a grain of salt on expeditions as intrepid as these, but our plan is to mosey about the sub-Antarctic Islands before spending a week in the Ross Sea in East Antarctica, home to the world’s largest ice shelf.

“For me, the Antarctica below Australia and New Zealand is the real deal,” says co-founder Greg Mortimer. “It’s so vastly different from the Antarctic Peninsula. East Antarctica and the Ross Sea is bigger, bolder and brassier,” he says.

It also feels closer. I’ve travelled twice to the Antarctic Peninsula, and the ease of flying to New Zealand rather than South America, is a huge drawcard and immediately evident in the total absence of jet lag.

Many of my 129 fellow passengers chose the itinerary for this very reason. But weather and distance are more of a disruption in this part of the Southern Ocean, which results in more days at sea and a heightened potential for plans to go awry.

The first week is all blue skies and calm seas, but our veteran expedition guide and research scientist Roger Kirkwood, hints early on that weather is on the horizon. As well as being the world’s largest protected marine park, the Ross Sea was the gateway to the South Pole for polar explorers such as Ernest Shackleton and Robert Falcon Scott during the 1897-1922 Heroic Age, and it’s not easy to get to.

There are multiple historic huts in this part of the continent, and onboard is a passionate representative from the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust who has the keys for us to access them.

It takes four days of sailing to reach East Antarctica. During that time, we fixate on sea birds, watch dolphins dart out of the ocean and sight our first blue whale. As we veer closer, we pass tabular iceberg B-22A, which calved off the Ross Ice Shelf in 2002 and was sized at 3000 square kilometres in 2023.

The ship’s heated pool is a preferred hang-out for some, but the outdoor jacuzzis are not functioning for the duration of our trip. When we’re not navigating buffet lunches of everything from roast chicken to cheeseburgers (and a daily salad bar), days at sea are filled with lectures from the knowledgeable expedition team.

My luxury Balcony State Room Category B on level four, has a lounge area and large balcony. My head has only just hit the pillow when I’m startled by a familiar sound. It’s close to midnight. We’re so far south now that the sun doesn’t set. Behind the curtains, in gilded light, the ship is navigating through pancake-flat pack ice so transfixing that it’s impossible to go back to bed. This becomes a recurring theme, as we congregate in the Observation Bar most nights spotting whales and our sole emperor penguin.

Pack ice surrounds Cape Adare when we arrive, but after much scouting, the expedition team finds a way through and we’re soon alongside Adelie penguins that make up the more than 700,000-strong colony here. They share their patch with Borchgrevink’s Hut, the first overwintering hut in Antarctica. The few minutes we spend inside the hut are overshadowed only by Cape Royds on Ross Island the next morning, where an erupting Mount Erebus blows smoke rings into a cerulean sky as we hike to Shackleton’s Discovery Hut. To stand in this well-preserved time capsule stocked with canned food, bunks and clothing from another era feels almost like a religious experience.

The next afternoon, following a lavish outdoor barbecue, we cruise past the Ross Ice Shelf, but no one’s paying attention. Pods of orcas knife through choppy waves in the opposite direction. Outside the wind is whipping and is so forceful that we are asked to remain indoors.

The next morning we’re informed that the captain has decided to head back north to avoid dangerous weather after a short but sweet two-and-a-half days in the Ross Sea. It’s disappointing, but the general atmosphere is one of gratitude for what we’ve experienced.

Many of the passengers onboard are polar tragics. But this itinerary also attracts first-timers.

“These voyages are for people who have a passion for Antarctica, rather than somebody who wants to tick off the seventh continent,” says Roger Kirkwood. “The challenges are lots more sea days and much fewer landings. It’s getting the weather right,” he says.

Despite having the odds against us, the weather briefly redeems itself five days later when we step onto the beach at Sandy Bay amid parades of curious king penguins.

We arrive at the Australian subantarctic Macquarie Island under an unusual halo of sunshine, and spend the next two hours among the 120,000 king penguins and 750,000 punk-coiffed royal penguins who call this little wonder home. It’s a banger of a note to end on.

We never got to repeat the Zen Zodiac in ice-bound Antarctica as planned. But the best-laid plans are often overrated anyway.

THE DETAILS

TOUR
Aurora Expeditions’ 26-day Ross Sea Odyssey December 2026 itinerary costs from $49,728 a person twin share. See auroraexpeditions.com.au

FLY
Qantas flies from Sydney to Dunedin via Christchurch. See qantas.com

The writer travelled as a guest of Aurora Expeditions.