At The Bottom Of The World
(CBS)
We stood in silence and in awe on a ridge of black volcanic rock. Behind us a wisp of steam rose from Mount Erebus, the southernmost active volcano on earth. In the distance an ice shelf in pure white stretched down to the Ross Sea where the water was an almost unbelievable deep blue. And then leaping out of the water and wobbling across the ice were the penguins.
We traveled to Cape Royds on Ross Island in Antarctica to see how the Adelie Penguin colony there is doing. But along the way we had a fascinating encounter with Antarctic history.
We stopped at the hut built by Irish polar explorer Ernest Shackleton in 1908. On the stove there was cast iron skillet and a couple of big cooking pots. There were cans of preserved onions and pickled cabbage on the shelves along with salt and candles. Hard to believe it was a century since Shackleton and his men were here.
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