Today I shook hands with a man who has been to Antarctica, and travels down there each Antarctic summer – Mr Roger Slade. Roger Slade has a website over at Roger Slade Photo where the sells some of the most exquisite images of penguins, ice, the Antarctic region etc: Roger Slade’s Photo Gallery.

I’ve always been interested in the history of South Pole exploration. I’ve collected many books from the survivors of Scott’s expedition, (even getting hold of a 1911 two volume Smith Elder edition of Scott’s Diaries). The whole adventure, heroism and magnificent effort of all the “ice explorers” – Shackleton, Amundsen, Peary etc has always intrigued me.

And I had to shake Roger Slade’s hand as I pointed out to him – “You’re probably the only person in Essex or East Anglia at the moment who has been in Antarctica”. He had an even better statistic which was that if you take all the people who have ever been to the South Pole, (That’s all the known explorers etc etc), or the Antarctic region, and put them all together – they probably would only fill an average size football stadium. That’s amazing, right?

Anyway, please go visit Roger Slade’s website over at Roger Slade Photo. And if you’re interested in taking an adventure cruise to Antarctica, please take a look over at Quark Expeditions.

Oh yes – wrap up warm if you head for Antarctica – the average temperature is -49 degrees Celsius!

Tags: adventure cruise, Amundsen, antarctic region, antarctic summer, Antarctica, Elder, Expeditions, Exploration, explorers, heroism, Peary, penguins, photo gallery, quark expeditions, roger slade, Scott, Shackleton, Smith, South Pole, south pole exploration