Now we landed at Port Lockroy, a natural harbour on the Antarctic Peninsula of the British Antarctic Territory. After its discovery in 1903, it was mainly used by whalers.

And in 1944, the British established “Base A” here, the earliest example of a British scientific research station. But now it has become one of the most popular tourist attractions in Antarctica. Here is our expedition leader Kara Weller.

After you land at Port Lockroy, the very first building you see is Base A which has the living museum, sourvenir shop and post office in it.

(Am-helen)

Helen Annan is the base leader here.

But sometimes it also depends on the weather. So I suggest you’d better not send any urgent messages. Deliveries may take very long if the weather is not very pleasant. But it’s a wonderful thing to do and send postcards with a penguin stamp to your friends from Antarctica. I saw many tourists writing postcards in the little crowded post office.

I also sent lots of postcards.

Now Port Lockroy is a very busy tourist destination. Last year it had 18,000 people coming to visit. But there are strict limits on numbers of trourists coming here every day.

The island’s main attraction is its living museum and souvenir shop but there is also a small colony of Gentoo Penguins. A major experiment on the island is to test the effect of tourism on penguins. Half the island is open to tourists, while the other half is a closed area and reserved for penguins. So far, interestingly, the results show that tourism has a slight positive effect on penguins, possibly due to the presence of people being a deterrent to skuas, - Antarctic birds that prey on penguin chicks and eggs. Here is Helen Annen again.

Even though now it seems tourists coming didn’t bring much effect on penguins, I still think tourists should learn the Antarctica Treaty carefully before coming here, behave themselves and protect the eco-environment here.