0ur plan to reach Antarctica by ship from Cape Town has failed.
But we have discovered a company which says it could get us to the Pole.
We must take a risk with them or go home.
But their base is in South America - we're at the end of the wrong continent.
We must fly 6,000 miles across the Atlantic, turning our back on the 30 degree meridian.
0ur route goes via Rio de Janeiro and the Andes to Santiago in Chile.
The Virgin is closed when I arrive in Santiago,
but the view is worth the walk.
In this well-ordered capital, a celebration is underway.
The band of the Palace Guards strikes up an oddly familiar refrain.
(ROUSING VERSION OF "HAPPY BIRTHDAY")
It's the president's birthday. The Chileans aren't always nice to their leaders.
18 years ago, they bombed the palace and President Allende took his own life.
Chileans may seem subdued compared with other South Americans,
but there are many pleasures here.
I meet our guide, Patricio, for lunch at one of the world's most elegant fish markets.
(ANDEAN PIPE MUSIC PLAYS)
Both the cuisine and the music are local.
Patricio gives me the low-down on the pipes they call "quena".
- They're difficult to play? - Yes, it is.
It's difficult to put in tune all the little pipes
and it's difficult to keep the tune
because you are playing long notes
and you have to have strong muscles in your stomach to keep the air going.
General Pinochet, who got rid of Allende,
tried to ban these instruments as being "too representative of the Left".
He had more success with human beings - 2,000 of those he arrested are still missing.
It's a further 1,700 miles down the coast to the town of Punta Arenas,
which lies beside the Straits of Magellan and opposite the island of Tierra del Fuego.
It grew up as the safest harbour for ships making the journey round Cape Horn.
From its airport, Adventure Network flies the only commercial plane into Antarctica.
We've crossed continents, we're now at the tip of South America,
and we're here on the appointed day for our departure. The plane's behind us.
But the weather conditions here are unlike anywhere else on earth,
and the final decision as to whether we go today rests with the pilot and the weather station here.
The pilot is a Canadian, Bruce Allcorn.
His plane cannot put down for long in the cold of Antarctica.
He can only fly out when he knows he can get back.
He's looking for 18 hours of continuous good weather.
There are a lot of low pressure areas. Is that common in Antarctica?
It's a phenomenon of the South Polar regions.
Back here a few pages, a few days ago, there's a classic example.
I don't know if you can see it here.
Just in the area here,
we have two, three, four, five low pressure areas
in an area that normally would only have one or two in other parts of the world.
- We're not going today? - Definitely not.
When will you decide about tomorrow?
7.30 a.m. We have a schedule at 7 a.m. with Patriot Hills to get their weather.
I'll come over here at about 7.15,
see what the weather man thinks, look at the satellite and we'll make a decision.
- What are the chances? - 50-50 at this time.
If you're a gambler, I'll give you better odds.
While we wait for the weather, I find out more about Adventure Network
from the local manager, Anne Kershaw.
Have you ever had to abandon an expedition?
Once in the early years, 1985, people had planned a three-week trip
and after over two weeks in Punta Arenas with bad weather, we abandoned it.
The only remotely encouraging advice is to go to the main square
and visit the statue of Ferdinand Magellan, who led the world's first circumnavigation.
If I want to return safely from my journey, I must kiss the Indian's foot.
Now I can get back safely, but when can I go?
Patriot Hills, Romeo Bravo.
OK. Weather is 15,000 scattered... 20,000 broken...
If you want to know the conditions in Antarctica, you call someone there.
There's no weather satellite, just the radio.
OK. Copy all. Bruce's plan as of this moment is to fly.
The DC-6 will fly. Planning wheels off eleven local. How copy?
This is the news we've been waiting for.
At the airfield, the engineers can start putting the plane together.
Bruce's DC-6 was first put together in 1953.
In aviation terms it's a geriatric - taking on one of the most demanding journeys in the world.
I've taken some risks so far, but none have made me quite so nervous.
As you can see, we're here, action stations, ready to go.
After 24 hours on the edge of our seats... well, our hotel beds in Punta Arenas,
we've been told the weather is OK to fly.
Planes have been known to turn back, so we could still have to go back,
but it looks as though we're off.
It's unlike any other departure we've made so far.
A bit alarming, a bit exciting. It really is a voyage into the unknown.
Well, here goes.
The adventure starts right away. Climbing aboard is a feat of mountaineering.
0n this airline you have to be your own baggage handler.
When all is loaded, the pilot shuts the door.
All part of the service - and he's the only one who knows how to do it.
Half the cabin is for freight, half for passengers - 25 of us today.
Climbing out of here I expect it to be a little rough.
There'll be some turbulence over the mountains.
The weather is generally good all the way. The landing at Patriot Hills is different.
If you haven't experienced it before, the ice is a little rough -
the airplane wheels around, lots of noise from the engines.
It's quite normal. Don't be concerned.
The seat belt sign means what it says.
When it's on, be in your seats with the belt on. I don't leave it on for nothing.
When the seat belt sign's off, you can wander around, come up to the cockpit.
If you're using a flash camera, please warn me.
It startles the hell out of me when they go off behind my head.
Willy and Rob will give you the rest of the evacuation stuff
and we'll see you in Patriot Hills.
We'll be about seven hours and 40 minutes, I anticipate.
In case of ditching...
Willy, the co-pilot, is, we're told, a fully qualified stunt man.
Turn number three.
OK. That's it.
As Bruce finally nurses us along the runway,
I'm seized by an uncontrollable reluctance to part with Chile.
The trouble with fear of the unknown
is that you never know what the fear will be like until it's too late.
0nce clear of South America, we have a 1,500 mile journey
to Adventure Network's base at Patriot Hills,
which is 600 miles from the South Pole.
The flight is self-catering.
It's quite liberating not to have to wait for trolleys.
It's also easier to meet fellow passengers. There's not a sane one among them.
Australian dentists who want to be mountaineers
and Japanese who want to ride motorbikes to the Pole.
This is the way to do it. All airline catering should be like this.
I pressed one once and it exploded. I don't touch them any more.
Four hours after setting out, we're over the pack ice.
We've reached what Bruce drily refers to as "PNR" - "The Point of No Return."
There is no longer enough fuel to get us back to Chile.
The mood in the plane changes. Public jollity turns to private contemplation.
Everyone prepares themselves in their own way for what lies ahead.
There are no in-flight movies to break the mood, just in-flight maps.
We've been going five and a half hours. Where are we now?
We've come from Chile over here.
Our approximate track is the inked-in line.
We're now south of the Antarctic Circle.
We've come past the... You saw the icebergs that were carved off of these ice shelves.
Was that real coast or was that ice shelf?
That's ice shelf extended from this area west of Alexander Island.
We're coming up to the Ronne Entrance area and we'll be coming over this coast shortly
and then on to Mount Rex and over the mainland proper.
(PALIN) Yeah. How big are the icebergs? It's hard to tell from up here. What size are they?
(ROB) The ones we've been seeing have been up to a kilometre or two across.
The scale is difficult from altitude.
There was an iceberg 100 kilometres across, the iceberg that would break off an ice shelf.
Those happen only every few years.
Apart from your base at Patriot Hills, what else is around this area? Any settlements?
The next closest people would be at one of the scientific bases either on the coast
or South Pole Station - at least 600 miles to the next closest humans.
We have arrived at the emptiest continent on earth. No one lives here.
An area one and a half times that of the USA is temporary home to some 3,000 scientists.
The mountaineers glimpse their goal -
Mount Vinson, 16,000 feet - the highest point in Antarctica.
But the collective pulse really starts to quicken when the Patriot Hills rise toward us.
These are the tips of mountains submerged beneath an ice cap 15 million years old
and, in places, three miles thick.
For Bruce, this is a testing moment.
He must put down a four-engined, fixed-wheel aircraft on blue ice,
without using brakes.
(CHEERING)
Everyone knows what a risk we've just taken.
If anything had gone wrong, there are no emergency vehicles to help us here.
This is all there is at the terminal at Patriot Hills.
The plane must be turned round fast. If the engines stop for two hours, they freeze.
There's no time for a helping hand onto a new and slippery continent.
This is the bit we've all been warned about.
I know why. Jesus... It's absolutely like plate glass.
Too late to go back.
- Bruce! - How you doing?
The arrival of Bruce's plane is the major event at Patriot Hills.
Everything needed to sustain life here comes in and goes out on the DC-6.
Apart from unloading 25 passengers and their equipment,
there are large stocks of supplies for the base.
If bad weather set in, it could be a month before the DC-6 is seen again.
All the fuel has to be flown out and the empty drums taken back.
It makes it as expensive as Scotch whisky.
Skidoos and sledges keep up a constant shuttle of freight between plane and camp.
The rest of us - the human freight - walk.
Conditions are good today.
It's high summer and the temperature has soared to minus six centigrade.
I don't know quite what I expected to find here, but I think it was more than this.
Next morning, after a calm night of unbroken sunshine,
I take my first faltering steps in the art of Antarctic survival.
I learn that here, in this ice desert,
even the most mundane human tasks take on an epic quality.
That is the most extraordinary view from any lavatory anywhere in the world.
I'm probably the only person sitting on the toilet for the next thousand miles.
It doesn't matter there's no roof on it. I'd like to spend my whole life here.
The trouble is it's bloody cold - you can't really hang around.
All human waste has to be removed from Antarctica. You can't leave anything here.
So anything I may pass today will be airfreighted out to Chile
where it's made into models and sold at the Duty Free shop there.
Makes you think.
Better be a good one.
The Patriot Hills base is a unique gateway - distributing adventurers around Antarctica.
Shinji Kazama hopes to be the first person to reach the South Pole by motorbike.
He's already ridden to the North Pole.
He's accompanied by that indispensable aid to 20th-century travel - a camera crew.
While Kazama tests the snow surface,
the doctors, dentists and accountants prepare to be airlifted out to Mount Vinson.
Their leader is Peter Hillary, son of Sir Edmund Hillary -
one of the first two men to climb Everest.
Just the logistics of an operation like this - like catering. Give us a day's menu.
It's a sumptuous mix of porridge in the morning,
crackers for lunch and rice for dinner.
- Doesn't that sound Cordon Bleu? - How do you get people to sign up?
I haven't told them about the menu yet!
You're from an illustrious climbing background - your father was the first man up Everest.
When you were young, were you given any option but to become interested in climbing?
If anything, Dad almost discouraged us from going to the mountains - certainly to climb.
We went there skiing.
He didn't particularly want his children to get into mountaineering.
But I guess it's like if you're brought up in a cricket family,
you have a famous cricketer popping round every so often and asking the young
if he wants to throw a ball around, and it's an infectious situation.
You weren't given crampons at the age of three?
No, but I soon located where Dad kept his, so I had no problem with equipment.
While the climbers board their plane,
we're served the sort of meal which Peter Hillary's party won't see for weeks.
Spaghetti!
0ver Chilean wine, we compare crazy schemes.
What is so special about the bike you're using?
- What's different from a normal one? - Yeah.
- No pollution. - No pollution?
- No noise. - No pollution? If you've got an engine...
It's got special things on it.
- Low pollution. Low noise. - Low noise. And what else?
Wider tyre and white colour!
So no one will be able to see you in the snow. You'll disappear.
You've been to the North Pole and the South Pole and even driven your bike up Everest.
What is there left to do next?
(THEY SPEAK JAPANESE)
Yes, I have. Moon.
Moon? You're going to motorcycle to the moon?
You'll have to go very fast to get the leap.
You can tell the regulars from the visitors - the regulars have given up shaving.
Even the regulars aren't out here for long.
The Antarctic summer lasts four months. For the rest of the year it's dark and cold.
There's no option but to abandon the base - as head of operations Mike Sharp explains.
We take it all down, pack it in boxes and slide it into a snow cave.
It's about four feet underground. It's one big room which we have to dig out.
- What happens to the planes? - Two of the aircraft go back up to Canada.
The Cessna we get to keep here.
We dig a big hole and bury it. The only thing sticking out is the tail.
We cover it in boards and planks and canvas. It's very successful.
We take the skis and the legs off and slide it into this monster hole.
Then when we come back we drag it out, put the skis on and away we go.
It gets its certificate of airworthiness.
We have an engineer in to check it, and then we're away again.
Last season they weren't so lucky. An oil drum took the tail off one of the planes.
A replacement is being fitted by Bill Aleekuk - a man of the Arctic.
Major surgery. How long have you been in the Antarctic?
I've been down here since the 15th of November, here at Patriot Hills.
Actually, this is the first time I've been to the Antarctic.
I'm probably the first Eskimo that's ever been down here, so I'm proud of that.
- Show them how to do it. - That's right!
Do you remember anything of igloo life yourself?
I don't remember. I know how to build them.
I was probably one of the last few that was ever born in an igloo.
You can put a roof on the lavatory! Someone started. Is that your work?
No, that isn't mine. I would never have air conditioning!
If the weather holds, we could be going to the Pole tomorrow.
There's just time to ring home.
(RADIO STATIC)
(INDISTINCT VOICE)
- OK. Hello, Helen. Can you hear me? - (SQUEAKING)
If you can hear me, that's fine. All I get from you is a strange birdlike noise.
If that's your reply, that's great!
I just rang to say I'm in Antarctica 600 miles from the Pole.
- (STATIC) - Are you impressed?
- (SQUEAKING) - Definitely. Very impressed.
I was always pulling the birds! We're going to the Pole tomorrow afternoon.
We're leaving here about five and we'll be staying there 36-48 hours.
- Over. - (SQUEAKING)
Yes, I have got clean underwear.
I really can't hear your voice very well, so I'll just tell you the salient information.
It's very nice here. The sun is shining. It's about minus eight degrees.
It'll be about minus 25 at the Pole.
I only have one set of thermal underwear,
but, apart from that, I hope I do the family proud.
- How are you? - (STATIC)
- (SQUEAKING) - Are you?
You should try using the other one.
(WIND BLUSTERS)
It's about 6.30 on the day we're due to leave for the Pole.
The wind, which we haven't heard recently, has suddenly got up
and it sounds as though the weather could be changing.
I wonder whether it'll affect our chances of leaving today.
I'd better find out what's going on.
With the wind comes a vicious drop in temperature.
But what's important is how conditions are at the Pole.
Mike Sharp calls up the American base there.
South Pole, Patriot Hills. How is your weather?
(CRACKLING AND SQUEAKING)
It may sound like Marconi's first broadcast, but this is a voice from the Pole.
I just pray it's good news.
It is. High pressure over the Pole.
As the wind drops, there's nothing to keep us here.
First to take advantage is Kazama
with a message he hopes to nail to the Pole, though he doesn't know what it says.
I can't read it.
His back-up team works almost casually.
They could be planning a trip to the supermarket instead of a month on the ice.
As if saying goodbye might be tempting fate,
there's little ceremony as Kazama rides off into the never-setting sun.
Their departure makes my feet even itchier,
but it's late afternoon before our turn comes.
This plane will be carrying seven people, fuel and survival equipment.
It's a single-engined 0tter of 1950s design.
This is the single engine that will take us to the Pole.
I seek reassurance from our pilot, Dan Baldwin.
Dan, have you a message of hope for us?
Yes. The weather looks good. Shouldn't have any problem.
Got a little wind blowing snow, but it looks like being a good trip.
- Have you been to the Pole often? - Never been there.
- You've never been there? - No. It's a first for both of us.
- Do you know the way? - I'm not from down south here.
I just come down to enjoy the nice weather.
This aircraft must be a veteran of polar flights.
No. This will be the first trip for a single-engine Turbine Otter to the Pole.
So the plane's never been to the Pole, you've never been, we've never been.
- I can just land you anywhere, then! - Well, we're all in it together.
- What are we landing on? - We're landing on skis.
Are those trickier than wheels?
No, not so much.
Whether they're wheels, skis or floats, they're all different,
but there's not much difference in landing.
OK. Well, if you're optimistic... I bet you're raring to go.
- I'm raring to go. - OK. Here goes.
So this is it - the last leg.
I ought to feel confident, elated even,
but I know from the Arctic that happy endings can never be taken for granted.
Rudy Driscoll, another customer, only took up adventures like this in his 50s.
I don't know how they did it without sunglasses.
At the base of each mountain range is a blue ice field
like a little lake attached to the mountain.
Would you rather be doing it on skis?
- Frankly, I think this is a bit nicer. - I wouldn't like to cross it on a motorcycle.
It's such an expanse of white. How can you do it without getting disoriented?
(RUDY) No landmarks except for an occasional mountain.
It makes you think how resourceful the early explorers were
when they didn't have navigation satellites or electronics, radios.
They found their way across that sea of emptiness.
At the heart of Antarctica is a plateau with an average height of 10,000 feet
and an average annual temperature of minus 50 centigrade.
It's a five-hour flight, but there's little time to sleep.
Halfway through we must stop and refuel. First we have to find the fuel.
A chart gives a rough position, but the precise location is marked by a bamboo pole.
Dan has never been here before, nor has co-pilot Scott -
who, it turns out, is not a pilot but a doctor.
Dan goes down for a closer look.
No one seems to mention what happens if we don't find it.
After a few abortive passes, Dan catches sight of something.
We've put down at a remote spot called King's Peak.
We squeeze off the plane and are put to work erecting a tent.
- Is that what you wanted? - Thanks, Michael.
Scott the doctor supervises Rudy and myself. It is bitterly cold.
Hang on to anything that might blow. It'll be a long walk to Patriot Hills to get it.
It blows back home, does it? Return to sender.
It's difficult to grip anything with these mittens on.
I'm just going to pin out one corner.
Holding my end up.
As we continue our imitation of Laurel and Hardy, Dan digs for aviation fuel.
The 0tter's tank fills with what we hope will be enough to see us to the Pole.
What seems like hours later, we have the tent up.
0nly then does it become apparent why we put it up.
Dan is leaving us here while he flies 50 miles to drop fuel for Kazama's expedition.
Watching him go fills me with foreboding.
I've never had such an acute sense of being nowhere.
Scott tries to cheer us up with tales of savage weather
and people being trapped for days.
At last comes the sound we've been waiting for.
Watching Dan approach is a comforting sight.
Watching him land is terrifying.
We take the tent down and, after one last weather check, Dan sets course for the Pole.
It's difficult in an unpressurised cabin.
We're at the equivalent of 15,000 feet above sea level.
Rudy, especially, is finding breathing hard. Scott administers oxygen.
Slowly and uncomfortably, we draw nearer to the Pole.
South Pole, South Pole, 5-8 Juliet Hotel. Do you copy? Over.
(RADl0) 5-8 Juliet Hotel. South Pole.
Roger. We're about 15 minutes out. How's the weather holding?
(RADl0) I have a couple of pieces of information.
When you land on the skiway, you'll see a number nine marker.
We recommend you pull off - well off the runway - and park the plane there.
How copy?
You're coming in five square there.
(RADl0) Roger. I've got one more piece of information.
There is no certified runway available
and the US government cannot authorise a landing. How copy?
- Roger. We got that. - 0K. Have a good landing.
(PALIN) We're brought down to earth.
The goal of our journey is within our grasp,
but the radio conversation is a reminder of an awkward truth -
no one really wants us here.
Well, here it is. We've landed at the South Pole.
Or tantalisingly close. I don't know where the Pole is.
So... I'd better go and ask.
This is definitely not what I expected.
It's a cross between the moon and a marshalling yard.
I see domes and aerials, dishes and pylons, but no Pole.
How ironic it is that in the world's most unspoilt wilderness
the needs of science have created a building site.
But where's the Pole?
Perhaps it's kept indoors to stop it getting knocked over by bulldozers.
This is the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station,
established by the Americans 35 years ago.
It proves that even at the most inhospitable place on earth,
life as we know it can survive.
0utside the temperature is 30 below.
In here they can wear shorts and eat chilli and blueberry pie.
There is a record number of 120 scientists working here.
0ne of them must know where the Pole is.
Keep going.
Now I know where it is, but not which one it is.
Surely this can't be it, all gaudy like a fairground attraction?
Thankfully not. This is the "ceremonial Pole".
Politicians who get this far like to be photographed here.
At last I see it.
I'm about to join the ranks of those who have done what Scott and Amundsen didn't -
stand on both Poles.
At this point, all the world's lines of longitude converge on my toecaps.
It's impossible to go further south than this.
Every direction you go in will be north.
I can actually walk around the world in eight seconds - as I will now demonstrate.
It is the end of the world.
(HOARSELY) It's also the end of our migration from north to south.
The omens are telling us to stop.
The camera just packed up because of the cold and I'm beginning to pack up too.
It's minus 30 degrees centigrade here - with wind chill that's minus 50.
We're also at an elevation of 9,000 feet, so there's altitude sickness to combat.
But I think that after five and a half months, the body is saying, "Pack it in."
When I was a boy, I dreamed of coming here like my heroes Scott and Amundsen.
Now I am here, I want to celebrate, but it's not that easy.
The US government doesn't encourage hospitality.
While the scientists snuggle under warm blankets, we spend a bitter night in a tent.
But I can think of no more fitting end to our journey than to say,
"I'm glad we did it this way."