The great-grandson of legendary explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, Patrick Bergel has made history by becoming the first to drive a passenger car across the Antarctic. The 30-day route — driven in a Hyundai Santa Fe — traversed the continent from Union Camp to McMurdo and back again, completing the journey that Shackleton began over 100 years ago.
The 30-day expedition, facilitated by Hyundai Motor, saw Patrick and a small team take on almost 5800km of icy terrain in bitter conditions. They not only had to cover extreme distances at temperatures down to minus 28C but also had to plot new paths on floating ice caps that have never been travelled by wheeled vehicle before.
The expedition was inspired by Shackleton’s heroic Trans-Antarctic journey of 1914-17 when, having been beaten to the Pole by Roald Amundsen, he tried to become the first to cross the continent. His ship sank in pack ice, but the heroic explorer and five men sailed 800 miles over open, stormy sea to South Georgia, from where a successful rescue could be launched.
It was this spirit of endurance shown by Shackleton that inspired Hyundai Motor to visit the Antarctic and enable a member of Shackleton’s family to complete what had been started over 100 years ago.
Scott Noh, Head of Overseas Marketing Group, Hyundai Motor Company said: “We were aware of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s story and as a Company felt a resonance with his courage and pioneering spirit. Our film celebrates this spirit and through Patrick, his Great Grandson, completes his dream to cross Antarctica — just a hundred years later.”
The team travelled from Union Glacier to the South Pole then followed the Leverett Glacier and the trans-Antarctic Mountains, past smoking Mount Erebus volcano, to the Ross Ice Shelf and McMurdo. Bergel added: “Some sections were unbelievably beautiful and only a few dozen people actually get to see the trans-Antarctic Mountains. That was the point at which nobody in a wheeled vehicle had been beyond. My great-grandfather was the first to climb Erebus and I’d seen pictures of it as a child. It is quite spectacular, with plumes of smoke coming out, and it was pretty special to be driving and see it come out of the cloud.”
The journey was carefully plotted on GPS and locations of potential danger areas were reviewed in detailed meetings with experts at Union Glacier before departure but there were still plenty of pitfalls along the way.
“When you’re driving through a total white-out you start hallucinating, seeing things that aren’t there,” said Bergel. “Our brains often confused us into believing we were going uphill rather than down. In one area, a giant crevasse field, we had to rope up the vehicles to make sure if one fell in it could be recovered by the others. We had one scary moment there — but we managed to get through okay.”
