To stand or sit still without speaking and hear the low hum of being alive—it’s like experiencing a taste of the infinite, a glimpse far, far beyond our frail existence. Oh Fin, where are you.

Shen starts ringing my cabin.

‘Sorry, wrong number,’ he stutters every time.

I wonder if he’s learnt the words from Hollywood and start locking my cabin door at night. It’s the first time I’ve locked a door during the entire trip.

The addresses of new mates are transferred from battered business cards and chocolate bar wrappers into my Filofax. The network spiderwebs across Australia and Europe.

There’s a pattern of big lives, of living in remote places, of grabbing at life and not following the line of least resistance. They email me with their plans, post-Antarctica. Blanca wants to stay in Australia and open a Spanish restaurant, William is thinking of Greenland next, Callie of Tibet, Wesley of the UK, Mark of anywhere other than WA. Max tells me we should run away to the desert and write books and I tell him I let that dream fall by the wayside long ago. I tell him something that my father said to me once, about how he had dreams a long time ago, when he was nineteen or so. And then life took over.

Max emails back. His response is dismissive and optimistic. Different generation.

Emails crowd my days. They come in from people back home busy in the city. There are invitations to brunches and dinner parties and barbecues. I feel as though I’m witnessing myself becoming fashionable. The crammed life comes at me, weighing me down with its push. I don’t want it. I email back to the city people and say no to most of them, tell them I need a bit of time to ease myself back into the world, and I walk away from the computer room feeling buoyant.

I go up to the tip of the bow. Wind and salt bash my face. My mind hasn’t been this clear for years. Antarctica has filtered the shit. I’m coming home clean.

Max emails his approval at my refusals. Sartre said the essential freedom is the ability to say no. Yeah.

He tells me he’s going on a four day walk, to say no to work for a little while and to soak up the experience of the land before it’s too late.

I’m so looking forward to this walk. Off station, no-one else apart from Jack and he doesn’t count. It’ll be just the sky and the clouds and the barren rocks, the hills and valleys and deep lakes. It’ll be good for my soul, Finny. I need to find a quietness of the soul.