Richard Feidler

And I love, I've been an athlete ever since I was a kid, really.

But that was another thing that took me off that track, all the abuse that stopped.

So I took up long distance triathlon, Ironmans, done 10 of those.

I was doing athletics at international level for my age group.

And after 20 years of that, when I was 69, I went on a world travel trip and I went to Antarctica in 2019, just before COVID.

And

I had such a, dare I say, a spiritual experience.

Antarctica just blew my head away.

Well, I just felt this strong presence of, oh, I understand, not that I do because of the title of the book, but...

But I just felt a part of, in the most intense, magical way, seeing waves literally on top of a dead volcano, looking down at the ship, this pristine water, icebergs, penguins, and then these three whales just like 300 metres away started breaching.

And I just was in tears.

I just thought, oh, my God, this was magic.

This is being alive.

I understand why.

I'm just a dot.

I'm a dot in a dot.

I'm a dot in space.

And that was a comfort, was it?

Oh, absolutely.

It was just this strength I got from just those few minutes of being on the top, those particular minutes in 12 Days in Antarctica.