Excited and enthusiastic supporters keep the Terra Nova company as it carries Captain Robert Scott and his crew out to the Lyttelton Heads on its way to Antarctica and the race to the South Pole in 1910. How bittersweet this image is now that we know how fateful this adventure would end up being.
Scott and his men did reach the pole on the 17 January 1912, 33 days after the Norwegians. All five men who did the last dash to the pole were dead less than three months later. Scott kept his journal up to his dying day, his last entry was on the 29 March 1912:
“Every day we have been ready to start for our depot 11 miles away, but outside the door of the tent it remains a scene of whirling drift. I do not think we can hope for any better things now. We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and the end can not be far. It seems a pity but I do not think I can write more. R. Scott”.
The bodies were recovered 8 months later, while Scott’s wife and their little boy were on their way to New Zealand to met him on his return. She got the news while still on the sea.
*Photo courtesy of http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/*
