One of the world’s most isolated places is the ultimate cruise destination

3 months ago 19

This article is part of Traveller’s Holiday Guide to ocean cruising.

In the afternoon, thanks to helpful winds and a following swell, we spot South Georgia. Icebergs are bright blue against black rock and grey glaciers. Mountains are grim under ominous clouds. For two days and two nights, we’ve heaved on Aurora Expedition’s ship Greg Mortimer across the frigid South Atlantic to get here.

At times, jolted and queasy, I’ve wondered at the wisdom of this journey. As we scramble out of Zodiacs and make landfall, all doubts dissolve. A reception committee of king penguins waits at King Haakon Bay, sleek as French waiters in white shirts and grey jackets.

The lineup at Gold Beach in South Georgia.

Seals splash in a shallow inlet and wobble across the pebble beach. I spot my first elephant seal, a giant blob from a horror movie, but harmless enough, snoring through its whiskers as it sleeps. Across clumped tussac grass, snow-whipped peaks rise. Every valley is gnawed by a glacier.

My naive enthusiasm is, however, premature. Penguin expert and expedition team member Linda gives an amused snort when I comment on wildlife numbers at King Haakon Bay. She looks at me the way Crocodile Dundee looked at the New York punk with a knife. That’s not a lot of wildlife!

This is a lot of wildlife: Salisbury Plain next morning. Flocks of seabirds wheel around the ship as I tuck into eggs Benedict with salmon. On shore, I can already spot an army of king penguins, so many they might have been created by CGI for some vast movie epic.

King penguins at Salisbury Plain, South Georgia.

I don’t know why I’m always thinking of movies in South Georgia. Maybe because it feels so unreal, like being in a David Attenborough production, or on another planet. Nowhere else have I felt so cut off from anything familiar.

This is the domain of penguins, not puny humans. They dominate the raw landscape thanks to their cacophony of inelegant honks and caws, acrid stink and sheer numbers. There might be 60,000 breeding pairs of king penguins on Salisbury Plain alone.

It’s a visceral experience. In theory, we’re asked to keep five metres from penguins for biosecurity reasons. In practice, that’s impossible – many penguins are so curious they’ll waddle towards us and carefully consider our unexpected appearance in their landscape.

It isn’t just wildlife numbers that have an impact on visitors to South Georgia. You get closer to animals here than almost anywhere else in the world. Close enough to admire the sheen on penguins’ feathers, to be alarmed by the fierce beaks of giant petrels, and to look into seals’ watery black eyes.

South Georgia beats the Arctic and Svalbard, where you’re lucky to see only a few walrus or polar bears at a distance. It’s even harder to get to, however. The British Overseas Territory is 1300 kilometres from the nearest permanent habitation in the Falkland Islands, and 2000 kilometres east of the South American mainland.

Exploring the wilds – Grytviken in South Georgia.

South Georgia has no airport. Unless you join the British Antarctic Survey, the only way to get here is on an expedition cruise in summer. I’m here with Aurora Expeditions, a top choice for this remote and rugged destination. The inverted bow of Greg Mortimer provides increased stability in rough waters, and abundant decks a grandstand onto icebergs and drifting seabirds if you can stand the cold. Two well-placed hot tubs are terrific if you can’t.

Wind and waves set the agenda in this volatile environment, so you need an experienced company and expedition team that knows the best places to sail and land. I’m lucky to have Aurora’s founder Greg Mortimer himself on board. The legendary adventurer – the first Australian (with Tim Macartney-Snape) to climb Mount Everest and various other big peaks, including Antarctica’s highest – has led more than 80 expeditions to Antarctica.

Every excursion brings something different. Hercules Bay has macaroni penguins with jaunty yellow head feathers, and a laziness of elephant seals as big as boulders. Fortuna Bay is encrusted with glaciers and bands of buckled rock, and jammed with fur seals and their newly born pups.

The sun is bright on a silvery sea as we sail into Stromness Bay, illuminating alpine peaks. The ship’s Observation Lounge, with coffee in hand, is my box onto the grand opera of scenery. By the time we anchor, clouds are low and the wind furious. What looked beautiful now seems desolate and grey, but going ashore is just as wonderful.

By far the biggest pleasure of expedition cruising is the chance to tap into expert knowledge, and I soon find myself fascinated by lichen, cloud patterns and the penguin life cycle. Twice-daily talks by the expedition team add informative and entertaining detail to South Georgia’s natural history.

One afternoon, we land at St Andrew’s Bay. Dozens of elephant seals are slumped on the beach. Fur seals are everywhere. The king penguin rookery is the biggest in South Georgia, with perhaps well over half a million animals.

When I see Linda, I have to admit that my amazement at the wildlife all those days ago was indeed premature. The numbers are difficult to fathom. The island is home to most of the world’s Antarctic fur seals and half its elephant seals, plus some 60 million seabirds.

Returning to the ship seems surreal. The mudroom, where we strip off Aurora-supplied boots and polar jackets, is its portal between wilderness and the ship’s comfort. A quick treatment for chilled bones in the sauna and pre-dinner cocktails are followed by pappardelle alla norma and an Argentine malbec.

On our final morning in South Georgia, we’re out in Zodiacs at Right Whale Bay. Peaks stab the background and waterfalls gush into a churning sea. The beaches are strewn with so many fur seals that we can’t find spare sand on which to land. Bull seals agitated by the mating season grunt and huff.

The water around the Zodiac plops with penguins, yellow beaks and throats flashing as they surface for air. They’re as soon underwater again, sleek as synchronised swimmers. Once more, South Georgia provides a constant state of wildlife overstimulation.

Greg Mortimer at Salisbury Plain in South Georgia.

By late morning the wind has whipped up to 70 knots, forcing us to abandon our final excursion. South Georgian weather is capricious. “You’ll have some blue-sky days and bad days and some filthy days but get up and out anyway, because you’ll always see things that are unique,” Mortimer advised us at the start of our journey.

Indeed. Now the snow is falling, or rather stabbing horizontally across the slush-slippery deck. But no matter. I huddle by the railing, peering through frozen eyelashes at my last glimpse of South Georgia, which disappears into the fog like a magical kingdom, leaving only albatross wandering in a milky sky.

The details

Cruise
Aurora Expeditions visits South Georgia on several different itineraries that also take in the Antarctic Peninsula and Falkland Islands. For example, a 23-day Antarctica Complete journey, which next departs on December 20, 2025 and December 17, 2026, costs from $US29,756 a person ($46,640) including all shore excursions and Zodiac expedition. See aurora-expeditions.com

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The writer travelled as a guest of Aurora Expeditions.

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