We spent 5 days in South Georgia on a 21 night cruise to Antarctica, which is a lot of days to spend somewhere that isn’t Antarctica. So was it worth it? Short answer – yes, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and Grytviken was probably my favourite town (although we didn’t visit many!). Here’s what the 5 days actually looked like, so you can decide for yourself.
It’s a long way before you get there
South Georgia isn’t a quick stop on the way. We had 3 more days at sea before we reached it, mostly taken up with mandatory meetings, boot cleaning sessions and coat-vacuuming sessions (yes, really – more on that in a minute). The first icebergs showed up on that stretch, and we passed the famous A23a iceberg too, which was nice to look at from the bar with a drink before dinner. When we arrived we sailed past Cape Rosa, where Shackleton’s expedition sheltered for 4 days in 1916 before crossing the island.
The 5 days
- Day 1: Peggotty Bluff – 45 minutes wandering among king penguins and fur seals.
- Day 2: Salisbury Plain in the morning (about an hour on the beach), then a zodiac cruise round King Olaf Harbour and Elephant Cove in the afternoon, with more seals and an abandoned whaling station.
- Day 3: The Fortuna Bay landing was cancelled because of a snow flurry that came from nowhere. We sailed past Leith Harbour instead, then landed at Stromness for 45 minutes among fur seals and elephant seals, with very few penguins.
- Day 4: A zodiac cruise round Hercules Bay at 8.45am (macaroni penguins!), then Grytviken in the afternoon.
- Day 5: Gold Harbour, 45 minutes on the beach from about 10.30am, and we left South Georgia at about 1pm.
Day 5 was added mainly because the weather further south was bad that morning, so we stayed a bit longer. Plans move around a lot – 1 of our landings (Fortuna Bay) was cancelled outright.
Salisbury Plain is the one for penguins
We could see thousands of penguins on the beach from our cabin before we’d even got in the zodiac. Apparently the population here can reach 300,000, and it was probably the most penguins we’ll ever see. There were so many in every direction (plus fur seals, which can be a bit vicious) that an hour went very quickly. At Gold Harbour on the last day there were so many king penguins we couldn’t really walk far, so we just stood and watched them, which was good fun.
Grytviken is a town worth the stop
It was once the largest settlement on South Georgia. It’s mostly an abandoned whaling centre now, with a museum, a couple of gift shops, a church and a Post Office, which is weird because the official population is 3! The Post Office does a daily collection, and the postbox says that “alternative collections may be made at other local Post Offices”, which I believe are 900, 1150 and 550 miles away (although the one on Signy Island no longer exists). You can ring the bells in the church (I didn’t need asking twice) and visit Shackleton’s grave. It was one of many highlights.
The gift shop is the only part I’d grumble about. I really wanted to buy one thing until I saw they wanted 70 quid for it – an almost identical one we’d bought in Stanley, in the Falklands, had cost us £35. Only the label was different.
The boring bit that matters: biosecurity
Before any landing everyone has to scrub their boots and vacuum their clothes, and the Government of South Georgia checks. They were checking quite a lot of us at Grytviken too. We got a 100% audit score, so all that coat-vacuuming paid off. Expect to do it every time, and budget time for it.
So, is it worth adding?
If you only want Antarctica itself, a trip without South Georgia is shorter and you’ll see plenty of penguins and ice. But if you can handle the extra days at sea (3 of them for us, and the boat was rocking a lot the evening we left) then you get thousands of king penguins, a whaling station, Shackleton’s grave and a post office for 3 people.
Shame about the 70 quid souvenir though, eh?