Icebound Wonder: Neko Harbor

Landing on the Antarctic Peninsula in the Neko Harbour could easily be called the pinnacle of every trip. The harbor is surrounded by cliffs and glaciers, it’s the land of ice and snow - miracle. Once the landing is done, you should move up from the shore as the glacier can calve suddenly, especially during the Antarctic summer. So when this happens the wave could be really big. Anyway, when climbing to the top of the hill - you will find the incredible viewpoint overlooking the harbour and majestic Andvord Glacier. The climb is pretty demanding and I would recommend not starting it without the walking poles. But it’s so worth it. There is a colony of gentoo penguins with dozens of penguin highways crossing the path. These are fantastic creatures, omg. You can also find seals and whales in the harbour, and plenty of other birds including skuas.

This is the place were most of the carvings are sighted.

Great destination! Enjoyed the open trail and peaceful outdoor atmosphere.

Early November 2024 during my second trip to Antarctica Landing at Neko Harbour let me effectively stepped on to Antarctica the Seventh Continent. The thick snow and ice is very typical Antarctic scenery. A chinstrap penguin colony of estimated 80,000 pairs located uphill, made the landing a memorable experience. The view is absolutely stunning. You have to be here to appreciate the wildness and the beauty.

Neko Harbour, located in Andvord Bay, has a beach and small rocky outcrop on the shore, backed by towering peaks and surrounded by glaciers which are heavily crevassed. The glaciers surrounding the bay regularly calve. Our landing site, after a cruise of the bay, is a cobble beach on the south‐west side of a large boulder, by a small reef. We were specifically advised to clear the beach immediately on landing and climb the stony beach to where the expedition crew were as the nearby glacier was calving and sending mini tsunami’s in. We saw a small one that caused a few 1-2 foot waves, but one of the expedition crew said they had a 3-5 foot wave earlier in the day. A note that with the landing pictures, the red and green tinge is not an error, its algae and it was pink-red and brown-green. We had odd overcast weather through the day but a golden sunset sail out of the harbor. Great stop to see the nearby glaciers, all the penguins (sort of a penguin highway where we were). The size of the ice fields really need to be seen in comparison to other things to get scale, such as the tiny iceberg eclipsing the research vessel. A great stop for an Antarctica explorer cruise.