YOU might think it's freezing outside at the moment. However, spare a thought for Co Down adventurer Kit Adams who, as you read this, is setting off on a long voyage south to the Antarctic where temperatures drop as low as -60C.
Already a veteran of three Arctic expeditions, Adams (26) is now part of a five person team from the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust (UKAHT) who will be spending the next five months at Port Lockroy on Goudier Island, located off the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula.
Port Lockroy is home to the most southernly post office in the entire world, nicknamed 'the Penguin post office' in honour of Goudier's only other inhabitants: a 2,000-strong colony of Gentoo penguins, who live and breed on the island.
Every post office needs a postmaster and this year the UKAHT have chosen the Newcastle man to lead this remotest of operations, which processes thousands of postcards from Antarctic cruises which visit the tiny island throughout the year.
"I can't wait," enthused Adams when we spoke to him shortly before he set off for his Antarctic adventure.
"The team are all lovely. We had a week's training in Cambridge [where UKAHT is based] and everyone was really getting on really well, so I'm looking forward to seeing them again.
"It's felt like a long time coming but now I'm starting to get all my gear and equipment together, so it's definitely starting to feel imminent. I'm really excited."
Adams and the rest of the team will man and maintain the post office's historic site at Bransfield House, a restored former British science station now managed by UKAHT which also runs its museum and shop: it's one of only three structures on the football pitch sized Goudier, which has no running water or internet service (though the team do have a satellite phone hook-up to maintain contact with humanity) and a mainly solar-based electricity supply taking advantage of the 24-hour daylight.
"I think it will be a very busy and cramped lifestyle for five months," muses Adams, who studied Geography at the University of Sheffield before going on to earn his Masters in Polar and Alpine Change.
"We only get one day in every two weeks off. There's a lot of penguins, there will be quite a lot of tourists over the course of the season and it's a pretty small place – but that's all part of the challenge and I'm really looking forward to it."
Indeed, the one thing everyone wants to know about Port Lockroy are its penguins, which Adams and co will be keeping an eye on throughout their stay.
"It's a very unique opportunity to be in such close proximity to them for such a long period of time," he tells me.
"Whilst we're down there we'll effectively be able to get to see their life cycle, from when they start to pair up and make nests to laying eggs and hatching chicks, so we'll get to see the full range rather than the 'snapshot' tourists get of a certain point.
"We'll monitor them throughout the season at specific points; when they have made their nests, we'll do a count then, and then there will be further surveys when they've laid eggs, when the eggs hatch and when they are fledglings."
Happily for the UKAHT team, it seems the cruise ships which will be calling with them at Port Lockroy over the summer months (October to February) to post postcards and photograph penguins will also be offering at least one home comfort sorely lacking in the basic Nissen hut living quarters which Kit and co will be sharing – hot showers.
"There is one shower, with cold water – and it's only to be used in emergencies," he explains.
"So we will go onto the cruise ships to get washed. They are generous enough that they'll let us have a clean now and again!"
As for the prospect of the enforced digital detox the team will undergo during their time at Port Lockroy, the Co Down man was actually looking forward to ditiching his devices.
"It's almost quite exciting," he tells me.
"There are very few occasions now in modern life when you can't find out anything instantaneously, so it will be interesting – whether or not it gets frustrating very quickly I don't know!
"But we do have a satellite phone for communicating with Cambridge and there will be a weekly blog that will be sent out with four photos. So [outside] contact is very very limited."
As mentioned, Adams is already a veteran of three Arctic trips; to the northern Norway mainland, the Svalbard islands and Greenland. As he prepared to make his Antarctic debut, I asked him where his fascination with Earth's coldest climes comes from.
"I've been very fortunate to get to places similar-ish to this before, which is probably what inspired me to want to apply for this posting," explains Adams, who describes himself as a 'natural outdoorsman'.
"But whether it's the Arctic or the Alps, I do tend to seek out these colder places. I think it's easier to deal with cold than heat – I know that if I'm too cold at least there's something I can do about it, but I really struggle in the heat.
"I suspect it's from growing up near the Mournes: I always found it particularly exciting when there was some snow on the mountains and you could get out and have a bit of a play on it. It always seemed a bit more adventurous and I was always doing that from a young age with my dad."
He adds: "My parents weren't particularly surprised when I applied and they were thrilled when I got it. My family have been fantastically supportive, everyone's very excited for me."
Of course, the Adams family won't have Kit at home for Christmas dinner this year – and it seems even he isn't quite sure what Christmas Day in the Antarctic will entail.
"We've got Christmas Day booked off but I really don't know what it will be like," he admits.
"It will be very different to any other Christmas I've had, on an island thousands of miles from home. But I'm looking forward to it though – and it will definitely be a white Christmas."
:: Keep up to date with Kit and his fellow Port Lockroy adventurers by following their blog at Ukaht.org/news/latest-port-lockroy-blog
