Ice is so nice!

With a tremendous crack a huge shelf of turquoise ice fell from the glacier and crashed into the still water on the other side of the cove.

Crack! Boom! Crack! Boom! The glacier continued to calve all morning, as I wandered between the abandoned huts and dog pens on Stonington Island, far below the Antarctic Circle where few ships ever venture.

Last year marked the 100th anniversary of Robert Ilford Scott’s ill-fated last expedition to Antarctica, shedding a spotlight on this challenging region.

Such was Scott of the Antarctic’s legendary status, for most of the 20th-century the English speaking world almost overlooked the fact that the great British explorers were not the first to the South Pole, but beaten to it by the Norwegian, Roald Amundsen.

In a far more efficient expedition he calmly set out on dog sleds with four men and found the Pole on December 14, 1911. He planted the Norwegian flag, left a note for Scott to find 33 days later, and returned to base, without fuss or losing a man.

Amundsen’s brilliant achievement was the topic of conversation for all us “explorers” on our once in a lifetime adventure to Antarctica. We were travelling on Norwegian expedition cruise ship the Fram, named after the ship that brought the conquering party to the White Continent more than 100 years before.

We could not, of course, replicate that journey of six months from Oslo to Whalers Bay at the Ross Ice Shelf, where Amundsen set up his base camp, Framheim.

Ours was an easy-peasy voyage by comparison, but as we set sail from Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego, at the southern tip of Argentina, there was a hazard worse than seasickness on my mind.

Navigating polar waters is not without its perils - even for high-paying tourists on hi-tech vessels. Only the day before, another vessel, the Polar Star, had struck an “un-surveyed rock” just north of Detaille Island (also on our itinerary), holing her outer hull. The 80 passengers had had to be evacuated.

Soon we were sailing through the Beagle Channel, passing the last trees we would see for the next two weeks on the densely wooded shore. After a mercifully calm night I awoke to find Drake’s Passage smooth as silk, and a dozen or more black-browed albatross soaring above us.

My first sight of land was not what I expected, no shimmering white peaks or glaciers spitting out towering icebergs - yet. We sailed through the South Shetland Islands, named in 1819 for their similarity in latitude to the Scottish islands.

Through wet fog I could see the looming craggy dark cliffs of Deception Island. We seemed to be heading straight for them until a gap appeared where the wall of the island’s volcanic caldera had collapsed, flooding the interior to create a natural harbour. As the captain skilfully navigated Neptune’s Bellows, the narrow opening with a submerged rock in the middle, the eerie sight of the remains of a long deserted whaling station came into view.

We landed by PolarSirkel boats with the warning to give a wide berth to a resting fur seal, camouflaged on the dark grey volcanic sand. “One bite and that’s it for you!” said Manuel from the expedition team, convincing us there was no antidote to the deadly bacteria in its saliva.

It started to snow as I wandered among the bleached bones of long-dead whales to a derelict hut with vast copper cauldrons once used for blubber processing. The sun came out briefly and 38 hardy souls, including an Englishman in a tie, took a dip in the icy sea, and were awarded with a tot of whisky and a certificate.

That evening I could barely drag myself away from the deck as our first icebergs came into view. In early February, it was no colder than home, with temperatures of 4-6C. The great difference was that the sun didn’t set until 10pm or later and rose a few hours later.

The Fram is an unusual cross between a large expedition ship and a small cruise ship with a maximum of 300 passengers and an ice-strengthened hull. My cabin, with fold down bunks on either side, a good-sized window and tiny bathroom, was a cosy refuge. More spacious cabins are also offered on the higher decks.

As we approached Cuverville Island I saw my first humpback whale spouting in the distance. On deck the crisp clean air was tinged with an acrid whiff, leaving us in no doubt that the Antarctica Peninsula’s largest known colony of gentoo penguins were at home.

Once ashore, cameras and camcorders went into over-drive to capture their antics - whether shooting, beak first, down runways in the snow, or cocking their heads from side to side in a flirtatious manner.

That evening we sailed through the Gullet, a narrow channel bordered by towering peaks turning peachy rose in the setting sun. As we crunched slowly through water like chilled blue soup with ice croutons, we watched a pod of five orcas surface next to one of the scout boats and appear to chase it.

This was just a taster for a long and close encounter with whales to come in Wilhelmina Bay, well-known as a favourite feeding area, and consequently a hunting ground for whalers in days gone by.

Past the wreck of the whaler Guvernoren, run aground in 1915, we came across a humpback mother and calf. Creeping away as quietly as a 12,700-ton vessel can, we moved on to find a male and female. These obligingly did flips and turns right beside the ship for more than half an hour, giving me my first entrancing views of whales’ barnacled heads and long thin waving flippers, and great shots of their magnificent, gleaming flukes. What luck!

Luck had a lot to do with our itinerary. It ran out at Horseshoe Island in Marguerite Bay, where high waves prevented us landing to see Base Y, a fully equipped British scientific research station that closed in 1960. But Anya, the expedition leader, always had a Plan B, offering more penguins, a towering volcano or more time among the tremendous tabular icebergs, some a mile long, in the Weddel Sea.

Just as I thought I was beginning to develop iceberg fatigue something would surprise and delight me. Thousands of sheltering cape petrels spread out like a big dotty carpet on the water, or a raft of penguins all flinging themselves from an ice floe at once.

Our final landing was to be at Port Lockroy, where Scott’s hut has been turned into a museum. I saw skis from Fortnum & Mason and a cookbook, published in 1957, with recipes for Casserole of Shag, Tournados of Penguin Portugaise and Fried Seal Brain Fritters.

Hen Joannidi, a Wildlife Monitor and Penguin Counter, showed me her favourite exhibit, a wind-up gramaphone. As we sat in the old bar, the Irving Berlin song, Isn’t This a Lovely Day, rang through the hut.

I couldn’t agree more.

Whatever the weather, every day I spent in Antarctica was truly lovely, rich in history, filled with wildlife and dramatic landscapes.

Travel facts

Caroline Hendrie travelled with Hurtigruten on the MS Fram’s 13-day Antarctica - Polar Circle Expedition. The next departure will be January 22, 2014, and costs from £5,721pp including 12 nights on the ship - full-board, flights between Buenos Aires and Ushuaia, all landings and lectures. International flight packages are extra and cost from £1,692pp. Based on two sharing. For more information call 0844 448 7601 or visit www.hurtigruten.co.uk