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Librarian’s dream comes true
To visit the Antarctic is something she has wanted to do ever since she, as a 16-year old school girl, saw Scott’s diary in the British Museum. Now, 45 years later, Margaret Fouché’s dream came true. Fouché delivered the Richard Liversidge memorial lecture at the annual general meeting of the Kimberley Historical Society. She is the librarian at the McGregor Museum in Kimberley. In her talk entitled Below the Convergence she told of her dream which became a reality and presented a slide show of the pictures she took on the trip. Trips to the Antarctic take place during the warmer months between November and February. The Russian vessel on which Fouché travelled, the Akademic Shokalskiy, left from Ushuaia in Argentina for the 18-day trip. The town of Ushuaia was built entirely by convicts and now thrives on tourism. It also only gets dark here for about an hour at times during the summer season. The Akademic Shokalskiy was initially used as a research vessel and is now used as a tourist vessel. It is one step short of being an ice-breaker. Less than 50 tourists on this vessel were making it a personal experience. Fouché said they were all allowed on the bridge, but that they all had to be quiet. She said that on the coldest day, they experienced temperatures of up to -30 °C and on windless days it warmed up -5 °C. Fouché said that the ocean was rough and that they experienced high seas, but once the vessel crossed the imaginary line known as the Convergence, the ocean was like glass at times. There are no indigenous land mammals at the Antarctic as it is too cold for anything to survive, except penguins. On this trip, they visited the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and a number of research stations on the Antarctic Peninsula. Fouché also saw Grytviken, one of the only whaling stations, which is open to tourists. Operations at this station ceased in 1965. They also visited the grave of Ernest Henry Shackleton. “I would do it again in a heartbeat, if I could,” said Fouché.
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