‘IT IS THE LAST GREAT journey left to man,’ Shackleton said. He didn’t mean that we all had to pack our crampons and set off, ice axes in hand. For Shackleton, Antarctica was a metaphor as well as an explorer’s dream, and he added, ‘We all have our own White South.’ It is true that for me. Antarctica was always a space of the imagination – before, during and after my own journey. No cities, no bank managers, no pram in the hall. Some people think that before the ice came Antarctica was the site of Atlantis, the ancient civilisation which disappeared in a cosmic gulp, but when I went there I learnt that Atlantis is within us.