I attended a talk by Story Teller Rob Caskie about Ernest Shackleton and the trials and tribulations of his expeditions to attempt to reach the South Pole first, a dream he never managed to achieve, yet he was probably one of the most highly respected explorers of the Antarctic.  The talk was held at the One& Only Cape Town, one of four over two days, and I was invited by the hotel to attend.  Orca whales were just one of many challenges Shackleton’s expedition faced on its journey in the Antarctic.

Caskie is a raconteur of note, speaks loudly, and I could not help but think of Ray McCauley, who looks similar to Caskie.  Caskie also has an almost ‘evangelical’ energy and passion in sharing his information, and holds a stick when he talks, which he uses to illustrate practical details such as the gradient of a mountain, etc.  I asked him about writing a book about his talk, and he almost seemed surprised about the suggestion, having thought about it too but worried that he may not be as good a writer as he is a speaker. Caskie speaks fast, and his information pours out, making it hard to keep up and make notes, especially if one does not know the subject matter.

Broadly speaking, Shackleton’s expedition was the first to get close to the South Pole, but on 9 January 1909 it had to turn around, 97 km from the South Pole, as the food supply was running low, and it would not have made the return journey. His expedition was beaten by those of Roald Amundsen, reaching the South Pole on 14 December 1911, and by that of Robert Scott, on 17 January 1912.  Of the three explorers, Shackleton was the most amazing leader, always putting his own needs and comfort second to those of his team, and in his book ‘South’ he wrote: ‘Leadership has many penalties, and one of them is loneliness’!  They beat the odds in staying alive, in contracting dysentery from contaminated meat, in handling a threatened mutiny, being stuck for 18 months on the ice in the Weddel Sea, losing their ship the ‘Endurance’, which was crushed by the pack ice, camping on ice, living off their animals, having to bear the smell of the penguin guano on Elephant Island, surviving for four months on kelp and seaweed on Elephant Island, overcoming inhospitable glaciers and cliffs to get from the south side to the whaling station on the north side of South Georgia Island, having frostbitten toes amputated, all of which Caskie calls the ‘biggest survival story in modern day history’. Shackleton died of a heart attack on another journey down to the Antarctic.  When asked what should happen to his body, his wife said: “Antarctica always was his mistress – bury him there”.

Caskie does talks about Antarctica, a region he visited for the first time last December, locally and in the UK, as well as about the Anglo-Zulu war history, and guides tours around Rorke’s Drift.  He told me that he is not an extreme sports man, but he has parachuted a number of times, and has solo motorcycled through Africa.  For his talk Caskie wore his trademark outfit – a  branded shirt and shorts, the same outfit which he wore at the Antarctica, at -10°C!  He described how the killer whales would jump out of the water, to snap up a seal, a horse, or even men, according to Shackleton’s book.  We talked about whaling at the table, and he said it was a shame that there was so much whaling at the time, the whale bones being clear to see in the clear ocean.

After the talk we were invited to the Buffet at Reuben’s, which was overseen by their chef Jerome Norton, who was a member of the SA Culinary Team which participated in the Olympics in Germany last month, a feast of salads, roast sirloin and pork belly, lamb curry, chicken, kingklip, and a dessert selection.  I enjoyed chatting to Caskie’s partner Karen over dinner, who has been in the hospitality industry, having met Caskie at Rorke’s Drift.

Rob Caskie Cell 082 4000 470  www.robcaskie.com

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @Whale Cottage