Blue Wolf Reviews

Tag: Southern Ocean

  • The Race to Kangaroo Cliff: A School Ship Tobermory Adventure

    The Race to Kangaroo Cliff: A School Ship Tobermory Adventure

    Entertainment, adventure and people interacting with each other, are some of the wonderful hallmarks we have come to expect from this author. This series of young readers novels is no exception. This book is the third in the “A school ship Tobermory” series.

    Ben and Fee are two of the crew on the sailing/school ship Tobermory, based in Scotland. They will have a year of learning regular school lessons as well as understanding how to sail a ship, and learn seamanship. The captain rosters all the children for duties, Matron doubles as a dive instructor, and Miss Worsfold, a teacher, also has sailing skills.

    The children become involved in many adventures, most of which are thrilling, but rather improbable. While sailing in the Southern Ocean, the lookouts spot an iceberg with a single penguin stranded from its colony. The crew of children beg the captain to let them rescue it. He allows Miss Worsfold and four children to row a boat over the icy seas, and grab the penguin. They barely escape a leopard seal that makes an attempt to eat them and the penguin.

    The captain later advises the crew that they will be sailing to Australia, staying in Sydney, then travelling north to Cairns, where they will take place in a sailing ship race. In Cairns, some of the “naughty boys” defy captain’s orders, and go for a swim to escape the heat. Luckily, no lives are lost but later when the crew go ashore, there is another narrow escape from two crocodiles.

    As well as creating rollicking adventures, the author has a strong moral thread running through the story. As the captain says, “Do the right thing”. The information about geographical features such as, the Great Barrier Reef, and details about the country and surrounds are interesting for children.

    Hopefully there will be more books in this series.

  • Into the White Scott’s Antarctic Odyssey

    Into the White Scott’s Antarctic Odyssey

     If you know nothing about Scott and his Antarctic trials, and even if you do, this wonderfully enthralling story based on Robert Falcon Scott’s diaries will hold you captive as the men, their dogs and shaggy ponies, battle it out against some of the worst conditions the Southern Ocean and Antarctic weather can create.

    Known colloquially as the Terra Nova Expedition(between 1910-1913) but officially as the British Antarctic Expedition, this expedition  was Scott’s second journey into the Antarctic in an attempt to be the first to reach the geographic South Pole and also to complete scientific experiments commenced in a previous expedition held between 1901- 1904.

    This ill-fated expedition backed by public funding and augmented by a government grant, set sail on the good ship Terra Nova, crewed by 65 men, some of whom were veterans of previous expeditions to the Antarctic, many who had specific skills and trades, such as Herbert Ponting signing on for his first expedition who was a skilled photographer, Clissold the cook who could claim years of sea time and Titus Oates in charge of the ponies and dogs required for the overland trek.

    But on this day 10 December 1910 the seas of the Southern Pacific Ocean were heavy and sullen, the Terra Nova was not handling the conditions well and her hull had sprung a leak. The ponies were troublesome, their legs swollen from long days standing in their pens, the dogs howling and restless on their chains. When a storm hits with a fury many of the men begin to wonder if they have chosen wisely, and this was just the beginning.

    One thing the storm does is build team spirit, something that as things turned out was eventually required in the days, weeks and months to come.

    As the expedition draws closer to the main goal, even more things begin to go horribly wrong, placing not just the men but the dogs and ponies in grave peril. Reaching the geographic South Pole, on 17 January 1912, Scott and his team of three men discovered the Norwegian team led by Roald Amundsen had preceded them by 34 days. As it is recorded, Amundsen’s team took a slightly different route, and did not encounter any of the severe weather recorded by Scott and his team.

    By the final page each of the men are very real; we can feel their fear, their sorrow and their acceptance as each one of them faces incredible odds. 

    For many years after this death, Scott was lauded as a hero but as time goes on and further detail is discovered many questions are being asked as to the plausibility of the expedition which claimed so many lives

    Grochowicz, based on diaries and letters left to be found, stories recorded from the few who returned and the known facts surrounding the expedition, breathes fresh life into the men who accompanied Scott, to present to a new audience of whom, like so many before them, find the wide open white spaces of the Antarctic fascinatingly irresistible.