The Map of Antarctica

Satellite image of Antarctica

Because of a high altitude, thin air, coupled with the snow and ice on the surface of the solar reflection, has been the result that the Antarctica becoming the coldest areas in the world, with an average temperature 20 degrees lowers than the Arctic's temperature.

There is a common phenomenon with 12 or more tropical storms (typhoon) in the Antarctica and it is by far the most frequent turmoil, with wind speed above 100km per hour. The France “Dierweier” observation team has detected the wind speed with 100m per second, a wind speed of 12 typhoons three times, and its destructive power is equivalent to 10 times of 12 typhoons. Therefore, the Antarctic is renowned for a characteristic of “very windy.”

Luoerde Amundsen (Roald Amundsen) is the first explorer who reached Antarctica on December 14, 1911. A month later, Robert Scott (Robert Falcon Scott) arrived at the Antarctica. However, Scott and his four companions were dying of hunger due to extremely cold weather in the Antarctica.

Exploring the Beauty of Antarctica

Migration process is usually a tiring and hard journey for the penguins to venture. When they hardly bear on hardships while walking over the time, they will use their fat belly to crawl around the ice or snow.

These emperor penguins have gigantic heads. They are the giant penguins in the world. In general, their height is 90cm, but they can achieve as high as 120cm in height. Their maximum weight is 34kg. These penguins are monogamy but not polygamy, and thus the family structure of them is one wife and one husband. After laying the eggs, mother penguin will hand over the eggs to father penguin. Then the mother penguin goes out in search for foods, while the father penguin incubates the eggs. Every year in March, these penguins will leave the ocean and migrate to different places that they find free from natural enemies to produce offspring. Almost all the penguins from these species will have a mass migration to leave the sea every year. Their two feet walk in a slow pace as tough a baby starts walking to explore their challenging and attractive journeys.

These penguins have small black feathers from the side of the ear pass through their chins and to the other side of the ear. Sometimes, people call them “police officer's penguin.” Their height can extend from 43 to 53cm and weighing 4kg. These penguins are very aggressive, as they prefer to fight. Their reproductive season is in every winter. Mother penguin produces two eggs each time, while the father penguin incubates the eggs. Both father and mother penguins will take turn to take care of their baby penguin.

Young penguins has strict custody and well care from both of their parents, nevertheless, young penguins have to bear on the harsh environmental condition in the Antarctic coupling with the threat from the predators. Therefore, the survival rate for them is relatively low with their low birth rate of 20% to 30%.

Penguins are renowned for loving their nests the most. Sometimes, they steal the neighbor's eggs by conquering other penguins' nests. They monopolize the custody by taking care of other baby penguins that they succeed to steal. Thus, penguins refuse to leave their children even a second as they fear of losing their children. When mother penguin is out in search for foods, father penguin will take strict supervision to their children. Similarly, when father penguin is out for “business affairs,” mother penguin will take over the responsibility to look after their children.

Young penguins stand at the feet of their parents, while adult penguins will use their abdominal features to let their children stay warm. On the whitish and ice-covered land, penguins nest and feed their children. Both male and female penguins will take turn to hatch the eggs. The hatching process takes approximately one to two months.

In order to survive their lives, penguins have to adapt themselves to an extreme weather in the Antarctic. Therefore, they always walk in a crowd close to other penguins with their back facing out. Their ancestors have taught them how to walk against the cold and strong winds with the speed of 160km per hour. The penguins that walk out of the group will always rotate to the middle of the group to get warmth. The empty place left by them will be filling by the penguins in the middle group. They will always take turn to get warmth. The spirit of unity ensures them to store the energy in their bodies to continue to survive at the harsh environmental condition in the Antarctic island.

Antarctic seabirds breed in the summer. They breed their eggs mostly in the Antarctic Peninsula and Sub Antarctic Islands, with one to two eggs each time. Male and female birds will take turn to hatch the eggs. They share their responsibility to take care of their young children. After three months, they teach their children how to swim and how to search for foods. The main characteristics of the Antarctic seabirds are their ability to fly, to land on the land, iceberg, on top of the water and icecaps. They feed on shrimps, fish and squids.

Antarctic swallow or commonly known as the Antarctic pigeon as its appearance resembles the pigeon. Antarctic swallow is the most beautiful seabird among the bird species in the Antarctic Island. They inhibit in the Antarctic region throughout the year and thus they are “indigenous tribes” as compared to other birds that tend to migrate to the north of the Polar Regions when the season changes.

Skua is a natural enemy for penguins. Skua has about 0.7m in length. Its body has a covering of black, blue, green, shining and bright feathers. Besides that, Skua has a long hooked beak and a pair of strong wings.

Skua, a type of bird mostly flies over the Antarctic Island and seldom stays close to the water. However, sometimes when searching for foods, Skuas will fly near offshore to capture its prey. Skuas have a marvelous flying ability to adapt itself to the extreme climate conditions in the Antarctic Island.

Antarctic fur sea lion, a type of seal, which is also called sea wolf. Its head and facial appearance resembles a dog or a wolf, and its long beard looks as if a lion. The fur sea lion has about 2m in length and weighing 150 to 200kg. They do not like to live in groups, and only 3 to 5 of Antarctic fur sea lion will stay together.

Chinese Antarctic expedition team has named this region as the Great Wall Bay. Behind the Great Wall Bay is an island of penguin and the ice on this island never melt off throughout the year.

The winds in Antarctica are strong with a maximum wind speed accelerates to 100m per second. Years and years, the strong winds erode, grind and construct the stones by shaping them into a diverse and unique shape of rocks and stones.

Lichen is one of the oldest plants on Earth. It belongs to a kind of primitive type of lower plants, and they are the most widely distributed species found on the island of Antarctica. Its growing rate is relatively low, with the growth of 1mm every 100 years.

Penguins can be seen everywhere near the station in the Antarctic. Three penguins were lining up in a sequence to walk towards the station, while the other three rooted on the ground by paying great interest to the helicopter.

The station was located in Fildes Peninsula on the island of King George, which is the largest island in South Shetland Island. Approximately 85% of the island has a snow cover. Its location is in the low latitude areas of Antarctica, surrounded by sea with a characteristic of marine climate, and thus this area is also known as “tropical” in the Antarctica. Its annual average temperature is -2.8°C.

Antarctica has its surface covered with tremendous amount of iceberg. Most of the iceberg forms in spring and winter. The warm weather at these periods causes the glacier or ice edge to split at a tremendous speed. Greenland glaciers alone have 10,000 pieces of iceberg forming up each year.

At the high latitude of Antarctic, there will be a bright light phenomenon flashing through the long dark night. Very often, this colorful and endless changes in the Earth's Aurora is caused by a huge discharge phenomenon occurred in the atmosphere, approximately 100km above the ground.

We visited Kenya in July. We flew Kenya Airways from London to Nairobi, stayed overnight in Nairobi and headed out into the bush the next morning. The roads are terrible. Seriously. The locals refer to the 'African bone massage' and they're not kidding. We spent most of our driving time on the verge because it was smoother than the road. Expect a 100km drive to take over an hour, possibly over two hours. If you've ever suffered from piles, consider taking a cushion.

Expect also to be swamped everywhere you stop. Take plenty of pencils and notebooks to hand out because the children need them for school and most adults will gratefully accept them. Also expect someone to try to carry for you anything you happen to be holding and to expect a small gratuity for their trouble. These people are poor and they view westerners as moneybags. You may have saved for a year or more to afford this trip, but most of the people you meet will never be able to afford the flight you took. A lot of them can't afford shoes or food and there's no such thing as a welfare state in Kenya. If you can't afford to clothe your kids in Kenya, no-one else is going to do it for you. Take the badgering in good humour and remember that if you own a car or a house you are in the top one percent of the world's wealthy population and therefore the equivalent of an A-list Hollywood celebrity in terms of wealth to the locals. The highest paid workers in Nairobi earn less than the average salary in Britain. Take any leftover euros, dollars or any other foreign currency because there's a good chance it will be accepted.

Take your camera and plenty of film, or memory cards if you've dragged yourself into this century. If you are going on safari, you will almost certainly see the big five: elephants, buffalo, lions, leopards and rhino. You will also almost certainly get a good deal closer to them than you think you will. We were charged by an elephant, chased by a rhino, menaced by lions and a giant tortoise and mugged by monkeys. The monkeys, incidentally, will have you on that they are just sitting there, but don't be fooled. They are watching you and waiting for you to leave your room door open so they can break in and hunt for chocolate bars.

We stayed in Samburu National Reserve, at Lake Nakuru, Treetops and Keekorok Lodge. We sat at the windows of our chalets and watched lions, crocodiles, hippoptomi, monkeys and even a leopard from inside our rooms. In fact, although Treetops is designed for animal watching and is therefore more akin to a large hide than a hotel, we saw only one elephant there, although we did see our only successful kill. If you are including Treetops in your itinerary, take another fleece and be prepared for some hardship. It's cold and damp and you can't get a hot drink outside of the designated tea-time. Remember that you are there to spend the night watching for wildlife and not for a good night's sleep. After the incredibly luxurious accommodation at Samburu, it came as quite a shock. You might want to remember that 'nairobi' is a Maasai word which means 'generally cold' (although in context you would say 'kairobi').

Take long sleeves, long trousers and long boot. If you can get them, I strongly recommend Palladiums. They have strong soles and light canvas uppers and are ideal for hiking about amongst acacia thorns without boiling your feet. Don't go thinking you're going to get a tan. You will, but don't go looking for it. You're at the equator and you will simply burn. You will. I don't care how much sun you can handle. It's the equator. Unless you've been there before, you simply don't appreciate how strong the sun is. Take a wide brimmed hat, long sleeves and plenty of suncream.

Take your nonchalant face. We found ourselves sitting at the bar watching the hippos down below us and sharing a cold drink with a fully kitted out Maasai warrior who was funny and generous with his time and happy to fish out tree snakes for us to look at on the way to and from the bar. It was one of the most surreal moments of my life.

Take your nonchalant face again. The drive up to Treetops is hair-raising at the best of times, terrifying if it's been raining because the road is simply a mud slide that zigzags up the side of the mountain. Worse still, you will probably be in one of at least two mini-buses so you will be able to see the peril that the other mini-bus is in.

If you are booking a safari holiday, the chances are that you are an adventurous sort and not happy to simply lie around on a sunbed all day. Take my advice and be very wary about booking a second destination. Safari companies may include a week somewhere like Mombasa or Zanzibar. If you are going on to Mombasa, consider breaking your week there with a two day mini-safari into Tsavo National Park and try to get a hotel in the city rather than on the beach or you might be stuck in a fairly grotty third rate resort in the middle of nowhere which you can't leave on your own because there are simply no means of transport without the pricey excursions.

You have to have a visa to get into Kenya and along with the visa comes a vaccination certificate which requires a number of potentially unpleasant jobs to earn. You have to take Malaria medication while you are there and usually for some time after you come back. Take mosquito repellent. Oil of Olay produces a skin cream which inadvertently works better than most purpose treatments and is slightly less toxic to humans. Consider taking a chemically-infused mosquito repellent sheet. They can be bought in high street pharmacies and they make a worthwhile addition to your bedclothes because most of the mosquito nets at the lodges are full of holes. Take anti-diarrhea tablets and rehydration salts.

Why now? Virgin Airways have just started flying to Nairobi from London from less than £500 return. There are a number of companies providing safari holidays. We went with Somak but you can also do fourteen day tented safaris for under £500 per person with Travelmoods, bringing your total costs to less than £1000, rather than the usual several thousand. It's worth noting that the lodges at the game reserves cost up to and more than £200 per night to book independently. Look for a tour operator who can give you the option of a balloon ride and breakfast. It costs around £200 but is absolutely one of the major highlights of our trip. I've never had a better hot chocolate and croissant than the one I had in the middle of the Maasai Mara, surrounded by armed guards and watching a herd of giraffe loping across the plain in front of us.