"Pole to Pole" for the Millennium!

Regular clients know I am a pretty keen traveller, and have been fortunate to have visited about 100 countries around the globe, many of them several times. Still get a huge adrenalin buzz from visiting new places, and seeing new faces and lands. I’ve visited nearly all the 50 states in the USA, and most of the provinces of Canada - even Newfoundland and the Maritimes last October. I have no children, and spend less on travel than most friends expend on school fees, uniforms, excursions etc!

One thing I’ve done for about 20 years is spend Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve somewhere especially unusual each year. Both in a different country is the usual itinerary. It is amazing how you REMEMBER spending a New Year’s Eve when somewhere quite unique, like being in the middle of Bourbon Street New Orleans with 250,000 drunken Sugar Bowl fans, or popping a bottle of Möet standing right under the Eiffel tower. Or just watching the waves lap the swanky Plettenberg Bay resort overhanging the Indian Ocean in South Africa, or in a beach view suite overlooking pretty Acapulco Bay in Mexico. THE most memorable tourist experience of my life was New Year’s Day 1998. Sitting sipping champagne in a metre deep rock pool in the centre of the Zambesi River in Zambia, exactly one FOOT from the edge of the roaring Victoria Falls. From the "tourist" side in Zimbabwe it appears one was to be swept over the edge any second. Safe as houses. The ‘proof’ photo is on my website!

One time for N.Y.E. I was on a cruiser in the Galapagos Islands Ecuador, which zig-zagged over the equator 10 times in 10 minutes just for fun, driving the on-board Global Positioning System (GPS) crazy. Last N.Y.E. saw me wearing a cowboy hat with the locals at Big Nose Kate’s Saloon in Tombstone Arizona, and it was once in the casbah at Marrakesh Morocco. Two years ago I was whooping it up on very dubious Chinese "champagne" in a tiny village without electricity in the centre of Laos. And once danced with the jet black Negroes clothed all in vivid white on the beach in Bahia, (Salvador) northern Brazil. Magic Memories. Another year experienced the astounding beauty of a snow covered Pushkin Palace in Leningrad Russia, and yet another in then primitive Xian China, the home of the bizarre and massive entombed army of Terra Cotta Warriors.

I remember one N.Y.E. where a group of us tourists had to bribe a pianist in the bar of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem $50 to play "Auld Lang Syne" at midnight - the Israeli rabbinate takes an INCREDIBLY dim view of Hotels there celebrating such pagan festivals in any way. (By comparison Tel Aviv is like King’s Cross!) One N.Y.E. many years ago I was flying from Vancouver to Tokyo on Canadian Pacific. The plane departed on the evening of December 31st crossed the Intl. Date Line soon afterwards and landed on January 2 … due to the date line there was literally NO "New Year’s Eve" - or "New Year’s Day"! The miserable beggars did not even break out any N.Y.E. bubbly for the passengers - that moment in time just did not exist!

For the end of the 20th Century I really wanted to organise something pretty different, and go somewhere never previously travelled, which after a while is harder than it sounds. I decided upon a Russian icebreaker entering the Antarctic waters on the tick of midnight. That is about as far away from civilisation as you can get. There will only be a dozen or so vessels in the waters around the entire continent of Antarctica, which many do not realise is nearly TWICE the land area of Australia - or the USA for that matter. It is stated that no other vessel will be sighted or encountered for the entire 14 days voyage within the Antarctic region. However, this vessel does not have a helicopter, so in a medical emergency goodness knows what happens!

This voyage takes me to WITHIN the Antarctic Circle, which is pretty far south …. further south in fact than Wilkes, Davis, and Casey bases - well known to all Aussie AAT collectors. We are scheduled to call in on New Year’s Day or thereabouts to Vernadsky, a Ukrainian scientific base, once operated by the British and then called Faraday. Also get to visit the South Shetland Islands, well known to all collectors of Falkland Dependencies stamps. I’m looking forward to sitting in a unique and bizarre thermal ribbon sea shelf around an open sea hot spring that is surrounded metres away by waters at minus 20º.

The odd thing about New Year’s Eve will be instead of darkness and fireworks like the rest of you will experience, it will be BRIGHT AS DAY at midnight down near the South Pole!! There is basically 24 hour sunlight at that time of year ... naturally there are three months of total darkness in their mid-year Winter. Will be odd singing "Auld Lang Syne" with sunglasses and zinc creme on, but there you are. Midnight of course comes FIRST on Dec 31st in the Antarctic regions than any other part of the world, so that will be something to remember - seeing in the 21st Century ahead of any one in North America or Europe!

This is of course the farthest south I’ve ever been. Two years ago I flew right up to Barrow Alaska, which is sited right on the Arctic Ocean and is the northernmost point of the USA. Look it up on a map - it is on Latitude 71.17º, and is higher than ANY part of the land masses of Finland, Sweden, Norway, or even the most northern coast of Canada which is saying something! It is a long 3 hour flight or 1200 Km by air north of Anchorage. Whilst there, it was 30ºF or a tad BELOW Zero, and this was mid Summer. Another time I spent an amazing Christmas Day at Rovaniemi, right on the Arctic Circle in Finnish Lappland. What a day, skidoo rides across frozen lakes, ice fishing, reindeer sleigh rides, husky sled trips, wandering around the outdoor Arctic Zoo etc, all great fun and all outside - temperature was MINUS 35º most of the day but not uncomfortable. Wonderful adventure - highly recommended. I went to Greenland once, also on the Arctic Circle, and even that was a lot warmer!

This ’Safari’ does not take the ‘short’ route to Antarctica. Never been one to do things the easy way when travelling! This trip covers 32,000 miles via 16 flights (over 50,000 km) plus a couple of weeks cruising. First I fly 14 hours non-stop to San Francisco then to Calgary in Canada. Been to Calgary several times (once for my "40 hour, 40th Birthday", thanks to the dateline!) but the highlight of this area is Banff Springs Lodge Hotel … to me the most beautifully sited Hotel in the world in mid-Winter. Located in a valley, the stunning French Canadian CP railway hotel is just magic - surrounded by tall fir tress just groaning under the weight of the snow. Spent a Christmas there once, and it was memorable. Take a rail trip for a stay at the equally amazing sister hotel Chateau Lake Louise, also wonderfully sited right on a curious green coloured glacial moraine lake.

So is not truly a "Pole to Pole" journey like Michael Palin did. Calgary is hardly North Pole, but one winter I was there it was minus 30F, with vicious winds, so that was quite cold enough to lump it in with "Polar" weather - for an Ozzie, anyway!

From Calgary to Denver, then Chicago, then to Washington D.C. to catch up with a client for dinner in Maryland as I did last year. Down south again via Miami then the 10 hour flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Shuffle for a few hours from the International to domestic airports, and fly to Iguassu Falls in Brazil arriving Christmas Eve. Will have Christmas Dinner in the stunningly located Hotel Das Cataractas, sited in a verdant National Park right on the edge of these massive waterfalls. Nothing else there for miles. No Elvis Museums like Niagara or similar tack like Vic. Falls now also has, like non-stop bungee jumping off the bridge. I’ve been fortunate to have visited Iguassu, Niagara, and Victoria Falls several times (and even the world’s highest, Angel Falls in Venezuela!) and believe me, Iguassu is quite something, and this Hotel is just magically sited.

Leaving Iguassu Falls back to Buenos Aires for some "provisions" shopping to last a 2 week sea voyage to Antarctica on a Russian boat. If that boat does a Titanic, the sheer weight of the booze I lug on will greatly hasten its trip to the icy bottom! From Buenos Aires a 4 hour flight right down to Ushuaia in Tierra Del Fuego province - known to all stamp collectors as the place that only issued just ONE stamp! ( "SG #1" is a complete country collection!) Ushuaia is the southernmost city on earth. Known locally as the "City At The End Of The World". Look it up on a map … it is as far to fly there from Buenos Aires as it is from Sydney to Perth, or Los Angeles to New York. Ushuaia is located further south than South Georgia or even Australia’s own sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island. A day of sightseeing in that Patagonia area, then across the stormy Drake Passage on the Russian icebreaker the Akademik Sergei Vavilov - that short, catchy, name just rolls off the tongue doesn’t it??!!

Icebreaker trips to Antarctica are never cheap and this one they loaded up extra big because of the Millennium - I needed to book this 18 months ago just to get on. But hey, I’ll be immune from Y2K problems right down there!! Whilst spotty 14 year old American kids hack into the Pentagon and Iranian computers Dec 31st and fire off missiles at Israel or Moscow etc, I’ll be chatting to cute Penguins. (Don’t want to appear a merchant of doom, but the above WILL happen, or something like it - just too many brilliant but maladjusted kids want to make their sad Martin Bryant or Theodore Kazinski type "mark" in history.

The old joke is that these Russian boats could never AFFORD computers, so how can the Y2K problem possibly affect them!? The darn thing is probably rowed by 3 tiers of Siberian galley slaves for all I know. Anyway, they better be well paid galley slaves based on the moollah I just shelled out, and am looking forward to this trip of a lifetime, actually entering the Antarctic Circle as the clock chimes in the new Century.

Summer of course is when the wildlife is most dense there, and from the slide shows I have seen, some of the fauna in the Lemaire Channel region is astounding. The scenery looks rather nice too! There are battalions of curiously wind-carved icebergs off the glaciers in the wonderfully named Paradise Bay. I attended a Greg Mortimer presentation a few months ago, and hearing from a man who has visited Antarctica some 56 times is absolutely inspiring. Mortimer says the ONE pervading memory for all visitors is the smell of fish based PENGUIN POOP! Zillions of birds for months on end on small beaches - well you figger out the rest! Phew. Greg says that lots of people go back again and again to Antarctica. Often people of extremely modest means that scrimp and save with a passion just to do it - it is that kind of place it seems. Very excited about seeing it!

It is my personal view that ALL tourism to Antarctica should be banned. It is the ONLY major destination on earth not yet basically ruined by man, and we DO have a chance to keep this pristine. No ban will mean a Planet Hollywood or Burger King will open at McMurdo Base one day. In my view this total ban will happen in the next decade. OK, so I’m a hypocrite by now going there, but don’t we all want to go and look at King Tutankhamon’s tomb in the Valley Of The Kings? We all know by doing so we are destroying the delicate wall frescoes with the humidity generated by 1,000s of sweating western tourists a day. But who visiting Egypt has NOT visited there!? Man’s will to explore, travel, and see new things will prevail until a total ban.

Anyway, then the flight back to Buenos Aires for a few days sightseeing and shopping and catching up with a couple of clients. Last time I was there was in the middle of the Falklands "Malvinas" War and I can tell you, walking around with an "English" accent (to their ears) was not a way to win friends back then … boy it was an icy reception everywhere at that time. Sadly (for me!) Argentina for some years has had the Peso pegged to exactly one $US so it is a very expensive place to stay or shop - unusual - indeed unique, for any South American country. Last Christmas I was in Peru, the year or so before in Ecuador, and the year before that in Venezuela, all of whom have horrible 3rd world currencies, but this time I luck out.

Back via a million hours of flights and connections through to Boise Idaho. Why? Because it is there, have never been to Idaho, and the airline lets you go wherever you like in the USA on this ticket! A short stay in Winter and maybe I’ll wish I was not there, but anyway, back home mid January to the usual few sacks of mail, and doubtless literally a 1000 or so email, phone and fax messages, and an instant ulcer! The relatives minding the house want a holiday too, so PLEASE no calls to them unless it is urgent. Fax or email or write me instead. Hope these travel notes are of interest to some - I get told so each year so keep them up! We stampies after all have ONE common bond, and that is an avid interest in history and geography.

I’ll be away December 15 - January 17 so to ENSURE your order is processed I MUST have it in my hands by December 10th at latest. You may win $250,000 ordering off my attached "D-1" list - spend up recklessly … frostbitten Russian Galley Slaves to pay off! The stamp market in Oz has gone ballistic in the past 6 months. Canny folk are buying better stamps NOW before this Government slaps a 10% tax on them next year. Cars, TV’s, electrical goods, cameras, etc will all go DOWN 10-15% but stamps are NOT taxed now and will go UP 10% or more. I have a few nice unique Oz items priced at $40,000 on the attached full colour flyer. All will sell shortly, and the GST is the main reason why, as they are of course cost $44,000-$45,000 next year!

I wish all my clients worldwide a safe and joyous Christmas, and an exciting welcome to the New Century wherever you may be seeing it in. My champagne glass will hopefully be cooled by a bluish chink of 2 million year old glacial ice - and THAT will be my lasting memory of it all, I bet! Signing Off For This 20th Century, Glen Stephens.

GLEN $TEPHEN$

Life Member: ASDA, PTS, APS, ANDA. ALL Postage + Insurance is extra. Visa/BankCard/MasterCard/Diners/Amex all OK, even for "Lay-Bys"! All lots offered are subject to my usual Conditions of Sale, copy upon request or they are outlined in full on this Web site. Usually allow at least 14 days for order dispatch. If you want same day shipping please go elsewhere! I am Sydney's BIGGEST STAMP BUYER: Post me ANYTHING via Registered Mail for my same-day cheque. Avoid NASTY auction "commissions" of GENERALLY 35% (12½ + 15% + GST, etc.) AND their five-month delays! Read this for details. I stock Australia & Pacifics nearly 100% complete 1913-1980. Ask for my LOW quote!

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