Antarctica’s most popular (and adorable) man-made attraction is back

Antarctic tourists usually look forward to three things at the bottom of the world: peeking at penguins and pinnipeds, peeling off the layers for a polar plunge, and posting mail from Port Lockroy’s Penguin Post Office.

Last summer, however, cruisers discovered the world’s southernmost post office – Antarctica’s most popular man-made attraction – was off-limits. Out of an abundance of caution, the quirky outpost on football pitch-sized Goudier Island was closed to cruise-ship passengers to help protect its colony of 1000-plus gentoo penguins from the threat of avian flu, which has killed hundreds of thousands of seabirds around the world.

Gentoo penguins at Port Lockroy, Antarctica.Credit: Adobe Stock

The post office, which raises funds for the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust’s conservation of former British bases and other heritage sites on the Antarctic Peninsula, instead got creative. The recruits who run the operation over the austral summer bundled up their merchandise in dry-bags and plastic bins, dragged them to the shoreline on toboggans and hitched a ride on cruise-ship Zodiacs to reach potential customers.

Before setting up a cashless pop-up shop aboard one of these ships, HX’s Fridtjof Nansen, last season, team members took advantage of a few comforts. Life on the island includes no running water or flushing toilets so they squeezed in showers, a meal and messages back home before greeting the queue of passengers keen for Antarctic souvenirs.

Down to business in the Post Office.Credit: Alamy

Products include penguin plushies, fridge magnets, tea towels and caps – as well as the classic postcards and stamps. Some 71,000 postcards were dispatched from Port Lockroy last season (my penguin-stamped postcards duly arrived at their Australian destinations three weeks later).

For the post office’s upcoming five-month Antarctic season, it will be a return to business as usual. In a statement to Traveller, the Trust says it “plans to open Port Lockroy and closely monitor the situation regarding avian flu”.

“There are still lots of unknowns about if, and how, avian flu is circulating in Antarctica,” it says. “Detected cases last season were a significant distance away from Port Lockroy however the Trust closed the site to landings as a precaution and they are able to quickly do the same again this season if there is the slightest concern.

“The Trust’s wildlife monitor will be vigilantly observing the penguins from a safe distance and will dynamically risk-assess. Actions will be prioritised in direct response to information the Trust receives from its team on the ground in Antarctica and the wider scientific and Antarctic communities.”

If you step ashore this season (no landing is ever guaranteed in unpredictable Antarctica), you’ll see Port Lockroy’s three buildings: the post office, a museum and shop are within a timber hut called Bransfield House, a boat shed and store date from 1957, and there’s a modern Nissen hut. A replica of the original that collapsed in 1994 is the team’s living quarters where indoor temperatures range from six to 12 degrees Celsius.

Port Lockroy and its buildings.Credit: Helen Annan/UKAHT

Over its 80 years of existence, Port Lockroy, off the western Antarctic Peninsula, has had a rollercoaster history. The site, selected in 1944 as Base A, Britain’s first permanent base in Antarctica, was part of a secret wartime mission known as Operation Tabarin to assert a presence and territorial claims on the White Continent.

It then became an atmospheric research base until 1962 when it was abandoned for several decades. Fast forward to 1996 and Base A was restored with support from the Trust, which today manages the site. Post-office and merchandise sales have helped fund everything from repairing Bransfield House’s roof to this season’s project – urgent repairs to Blaiklock Island Refuge, the Trust’s smallest and least accessible site.

Last season, 43,224 passengers headed to Antarctica, recording 80,251 landed visits. While taking those precious steps on the pristine landscape, visitors also followed strict biosecurity protocols that will remain in place this season to help prevent the transmission of avian flu.

Industry-wide IAATO (International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators) guidelines include maintaining minimum distances from wildlife and not sitting, crouching, kneeling or lying in wildlife areas. You also can’t place items – including tripods and backpacks – on the snow or ground in these areas. It’s a long list of things you can’t do – but at least you can once again clomp into the Penguin Post Office.

The details

Tour
Port Lockroy’s Penguin Post Office is a popular shore excursion offered by most cruise lines
headed to the Antarctic Peninsula. Landings are subject to weather and ocean conditions.
See ukaht.org

The writer travelled to Antarctica as a guest of HX. See travelhx.com/au