At this time of year, when
the football season is drawing to a close, the DSC gathers together to undergo
the ritual of trip planning. Where are we going to go? Why? Where are we going
to stay? How much will it cost? And will there be beer? Current ideas revolve
around the Scilly Isles, La Palma, Sardinia, Minorca and many more. Each
destination will be discussed and argued over ad nauseam until the list is
reduced to a definite one or possibly two. Such rituals, as we are sure you are
all aware, are often long and sometimes heated but are absolutely necessary. No
one wants to be stuck on a trip to Spain with another person who is going to
complain endlessly that we should have gone to Italy or Israel or anywhere
bloody else but where we actually are. So everyone else has to agree or at least
not mind when it comes to the destination. Which brings us on to a little
problem that occurred a few years back. At the same time in that year we had,
as usual, all gathered together with our brochures, magazines and travel guides
at the ready. The obvious destinations were raised, Greece, Spain, Portugal as
well as the less obvious such as the Orkneys, Cape Verde and Iceland. Then
without warning one of the female members produced an article she had plucked
from the pages of The Telegraph (she’s an educated type so doesn’t read The Sun
like the rest of us). The article, she explained, concerned a company called
Aurora Expeditions who were offering ground breaking snorkelling trips to
Antarctica. Instantly the other female members cooed in unison: “Ooo Penguins”.
Let’s be honest, once you
get passed the thought of snorkelling in water cold enough to freeze the balls
off a brass monkey, the idea kind of grows on you. Antarctica, the last real
wilderness on the planet! What snorkelling mad group wouldn’t want to do that?
But, and it’s a very big but indeed! As the article was passed around, a few
eyebrows arched and a few more actually leapt right off the face. The price for
such a trip was enough to give your bank manager a heart attack. The actual snorkelling
trips were priced at around £600 per person – pricey but not that bad
considering what is involved. However here comes that “but”. To actually get to
the Antarctic you have to go on a cruise ship and that is priced at £4500 per
person. So the full price was going to be an eye watering £5100 per person
excluding the return flights to the cruise ships embarkation point, which as
you can imagine wasn’t exactly going to be cheap either.
So although desirable and
theoretically possible to actually get there, it was financially impractical.
That of course didn’t mean it was going to be so easily dismissed. Remember
that unified cooing? The thought of getting up close and personal with a bunch
of oily flightless birds had stuck hard in a few minds (let’s face it was the
girls) and once stuck, such thoughts fester. So as the conversation turned
(more accurate to say: descended) to ideas about saving money by giving up next
year’s football season tickets, countered by suggestions of not buying so many
bloody shoes, one of us had a brainwave. If we couldn’t go to the penguins in
Antarctica, perhaps we could get the penguins to come to us?
So with that idea in mind,
plans were hatched and on one cold morning (the snorkelling gods had been kind
and even provided snow on that particular day) the DSC headed off for North
London and The Royal Zoological Gardens. London Zoo, if you didn’t know, runs a
little thing called Meet The Penguins. For the price of a restaurant meal your
nearest and dearest can meet a small colony of Humboldt penguins and the
resident Rock Hopper, rather unimaginatively named “Ricky”. As we gathered at
the meeting point something odd struck us. We were expecting to see large
family groups with children. What we saw instead was couples, lots and lots of
couples. And at the allotted time, the keeper ushered people forward and an
unspoken division occurred. All the women headed for the enclosure and all the
men headed off in the other direction. Possibly they were heading to the pub or
possibly, as some of us did, they were heading for the Meerkat enclosure. The
sight of penguins may enthral women everywhere but no man we know of can
possibly pass up the chance to do Meerkat impersonations to… Well Meerkats.
Now we know that getting up
close to penguins in a zoo cannot possibly compare to actually snorkelling with
them in the wild. However if you have a Bank Manager who is already sending you
threatening letters about cutting down on your expenses we can’t think of a
cheaper alternative and it kept the girls happy for another year. Travelling to
Antarctica will of course be raised again and one day, one day, we all know
we’ll get there. But for the time being the Canary Islands seem a much more
financially prudent and damn sight warmer destination.
To watch a video that shows what you can expect
on such a snorkelling trip click here.
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