Stonington Island: tiny and low-lying, ancient gneiss broken down over millennia, a place where ice and grey boulders contrast with algae-smudged snow. Nearby, glaciers calve building-sized bergs with thunderous roars, and the frigid Roman Four Promontory dwarfs MS Roald Amundsen as we ride our Zodiac ashore.

After 11 days, we’re as far south as we’re going. Since leaving Patagonia and the gentle swell of our southbound ‘Drake Lake’, we’ve followed the intricate coast of the achingly beautiful Antarctic Peninsula and crossed the Antarctic Circle.

Landing sites such as Mikkelsen Harbour and Horse-shoe Island amazed us, then disappeared beyond our creamy wake. As we navigated the peninsula’s narrowest passageways, we felt like maritime thread passing through primordial rock needle-eyes.

A lifetime’s-worth of whales

Our voyage south was defined by long days of non-stop ‘breathtaking’ and pink-grey twilit nights that were never truly dark, and by learning, with feet on its rock and ice, this remote region’s secrets. And of course, by the kind of close-up A-list wildlife encounters normally reserved for the likes of Sir David Attenborough.

Days earlier, penguins were just, well, ‘penguins’. Now our heads are packed with Gentoo, Adélie and Chinstrap factoids. We watched lazing Weddell and crabeater seals – and discovered that the crabeaters don’t eat crabs! We marvelled at wheeling skuas, albatrosses and petrels, and we observed, awestruck, a lifetime’s-worth of whales.

Visiting Stonington Island’s old expedition huts, Britain’s felt tidy; the Americans’ less so, with its rusting debris and abandoned tracked vehicles – actually small military tanks! Sailing back north, we passed time with more lectures, heard definitive proof of global warming, and made miniature clay penguins.

We also noticed the changing weather. Until then we’d been spoiled, but when Antarctica’s summer turned stormy, it was as if the continent had to show its worst side before we left.

Our final landing, exploring Port Charcot’s misty, white-shrouded February landscape, was under falling snowflakes. Meanwhile, oblivious to the weather – and us – columns of penguins waddled stoically from icy sea to rocky nests along their well-worn highways.

Blow the kids’ inheritance and go!

Two days from Ushuaia, Neptune even managed a ‘Drake Shake’ to ensure the full Antarctic experience. Then, our Antarctic initiation complete, we disembarked under a sky-filling rainbow and returned to sweltering Buenos Aires.

Antarctica was genuinely awesome, superlative-defying, a once-in-a-lifetime adventure to trump other trips. Forget that new car. Blow the kids’ inheritance. Just go!

You’ll love it. And, of course, you’ll learn all you ever wanted to know about penguins!