The pioneering spirit is very much in evidence; after all, this was where Scott set out on his fateful South Pole attempt. Now it is home to the New Zealand Antarctic operations base and a large proportion of people heading to the bottom of the world pass through here.

In pursuit of the inseparable goals of positive self-publicity and the Public Understanding of Science, a visitor's centre sits across the road from the giant equipment storage hangars. It's actually rather good fun. From the giant snow-filled fridge designed to give you an impression of what Antarctica is like on a summer's day (a balmy -5 degrees C), to recent photos emailed from the crew overwintering at the bases, it all gives you a real sense of the precariousness and isolation of humanity's last earthly frontier.

The video made by last year's overwinterers, the small band of scientists and engineers who keep things ticking over during the dark winter months, gave an insight into the isolation in this hazardous land when the sun has set for the last time... at least until summer arrives again, bringing with it plane loads of people and experiments and swelling the population of Antarctica to several thousand.

Sealife
Once again we headed out into the wilderness, north along the coast to a small town called Kaikoura. For the next day and night we sat staring at the bad weather. There may not be a lot to do in this town, but what Kaikoura lacks in nightlife it more than makes up for in sealife. The seals I visited while waiting for the weather to break looked as impressed with conditions as I was as they snoozed lazily on the beach in the rain.

But we were in luck, dawn broke and so did the weather. We set out in a luxurious catamaran in search of whales. For half an hour we alternately bobbed quietly on the waves as the captain listened for the telltale songs on the hydrophone, and then sped off in a new direction scanning the horizon. And suddenly we had found it - a huge incongruous brown shape floating in the water roughly 100 feet away. It looked so out of place in the featureless grey sea. Once in a while it would huff a great spout of spray into the air. After a couple of minutes of this it began to move, ponderously, in the water. It arched its back and, slowly, a gigantic glistening forked tail rose from the water. With an inexorable grace it turned and sank beneath the waves propelling the rest of the whale to hunting grounds hundreds of metres below.

These large beasts are so sparsely distributed that we only tracked down two in the whole morning. They live on such an inhuman scale that it was hard to relate to them, except to wonder how it is that such things really do exist.

The next day was a complete contrast. A pod of dolphins had been sighted inshore, unusual for the time of year. So we sped out, clad in thick elastic wetsuits that restricted both movement and breathing. The boat began to slow as it approached an area of water that was a flurry of agitation. We snapped on our snorkels and the order was given to jump in to the rolling swell. Before us, splashing through the waves, was a group of about 300 dusky dolphins. We had been told to look down through our masks and breathe through our snorkels - but it took me a while to convince myself that I wasn't about to inhale a lung full of salty water.

The restrictive elasticity of the wet suit, the inhibiting buoyancy and the labouring of my breathing made me feel completely out of my element, especially in contrast to the creatures below me. Looking down I could see grey and white dolphins flicking past me at all depths - eyeing me curiously. They could have only been a couple of feet away. Looking up at the scene on the surface, I saw 20 rubber-clad figures splashing and singing (we had been told to sing to attract the dolphins and it seemed to be working), while groups of dolphins surfaced and dived between us in perfect synchrony, occasionally leaving the water altogether to perform a backflip or thunderous side-slap. With my head fully submerged I could hear the strange strains of clicks and whistles by which they communicate, just on the edge of our hearing range. They darted past and stared at us as we did them, a strange meeting of worlds. It was an unforgettable and magical experience.

If it hadn't been for the concern of our guides over the ocean chill seeping unnoticed into our bones, we would probably have stayed all day. We clambered out, now noticing the cold, and sped away, shivering and looking back at our temporary playmates somersaulting in the sunshine. It had all gone too quickly.

By that afternoon we were back in Picton. Three thousand kilometres and three weeks, and we had come full circle. The next morning we said goodbye to our faithful white Toyota and very soon I was saying another goodbye. Gaynor was leaving for the North Island while I had decided to stick around in the South for a bit longer. We'd been travelling together for almost a month and it had been good fun to share this portion of my adventure. Gaynor had done all the driving and I had done some of the cooking (which didn't seem all that fair to me - I dislike driving but could spend all day in the kitchen), and it was a sad moment when I waved her off to the Wellington ferry. So now I'm back at The Juggler's Rest, sitting on the front porch in the sunshine, listening to music drifting from the porch speakers and relaxing. I could be here for some time.