Delusion Point ...
- Chris Hilton
- Feb 22, 2025
- 2 min read
Updated: Feb 23, 2025
Cape Disappointment, Exsaperation Inlet and Desolation Island ... seems like some of those early explorers needed a bit of a mood lift ...
At least, that's what club member Sandra Wayman thought so she headed off from Tierra del Feugo, through one of the roughest seas on the planet, aboard a battery powered, hybrid electric cruise ship for the pristine wilderness that is Antartica.
Top of the list ... Bio Security! Limited numbers of ships, limited landings, boots (provided by the ship) are disinfected before and after landing.
No touching the snow ... snow shoes are attached standing up. No sitting down on the snow to put them on, and if you can't manage that, you're not getting off the boat.
Certainly no need for a poo shovel here, which was top of the list when club member Cathy Warne set off to trek the Laugavegur trail in Iceland!
When you're carrying your pack, it's important to think about, not only 'what' you're lifting but how much it weighs ... this attention to detail led Cathy to cut the the handle of her toothbrush in half, something she later came to regret.
Cathy didn't take the packing advice of Henriette D'Angevllie, the first woman to summit Mont Blanc without male help, who took eighteen bottles of wine, twenty six, roast chickens and a carrier pigeon. No mention of the poop shovel but thems were different times ... Cathy did regail us with tales of sitting in the volcanic water whilst lumps of brown algae floated past, at least, she 'thought' it was brown algae ...
One of the ways to save weight was to leave the camera at home and it's a testament to not only Cathy's photography skills but the leaps in quality made by mobile phones in recent years that she managed to capture some of the stunning landsacpes she showed us at the club.
The evening came to a close with Sandra telling us about a trek through Madagascar which turned out to be more than she bargained for. It started with a flight change that knocked all the other timings out of kilter ... it led to it being sixty hours before being able to sleep in her first bed! Good job she wasn't in charge of naming anything ... who knows what that town might have been called. But being late also meant no down time, ten and eleven hours of trekking per day, and without stops and shelter meant the group was run down and more susceptible to illness and serious fatigue.
That said, they made it, and raised over £120,000 (when you include gift aid) for Weldmar Hospice which was an astonishing achievment ...
Next up ...
