Sundowner: Autumn/Winter 2019

SOUTH POLE
A&K’S FOUNDER GEOFFREY KENT FULFILS A
LIFELONG DREAM AND TRAVELS TO THE SOUTH POLE
ON ONE OF HIS INSPIRING EXPEDITIONS
When I was young in the post-war decades in Kenya,
I ran wild on our family farm, Kiamweri. Located
in a place called South Kinangop, in the foothills
of the Aberdare mountains, my family’s land was as green as an
emerald, dappled in golden sunlight, and often carpeted with
wild blue salvia (similar to bluebells) and fiery pink drum lilies
that bloomed as big as a man’s face.
In this dream-like landscape of colour, I ironically was
obsessed with whiteness. My father – an Army officer and
always the action man – gave me a copy of Alfred Lansing’s
Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage when it was published
in 1959. This epic book inspired in me the greatest admiration
for Sir Ernest Shackleton, my hero of heroes; as well as what
would become a long-standing desire to enjoy my own
incredible voyage and to visit the white desert of Antarctica.
I achieved my dream recently, a mere 60 years later, when
along with seven intrepid guests (now friends), we visited
Antarctica and reached the South Pole on one of my ‘Inspiring
Expeditions by Geoffrey Kent’.
When most people speak of having been to Antarctica, they
have travelled by cruise ship from Ushuaia to the Antarctic
Peninsula, a 1,300-kilometre chain of mountains and volcanoes
that juts north towards South America. My expedition was
to a dramatically different destination. The Antarctica that
I’m talking about can’t be accessed by cruise ship. To get to
the South Pole, you need a plane and skis or snowmobiles.
Antarctica is vast – mind-bogglingly big. To put it in
perspective, from our base inside the Antarctic Circle, to get to
the South Pole required an eight-hour flight, a refuelling stop
and the crossing of a time-zone.
This expedition was three years in the making. This may seem
like a long time to plan, but there was a good reason for the
long preamble: while I dreamed of getting to the South Pole like
Shackleton, unlike Shackleton, I wanted to do it in comfort and
five-star style.
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