Mid-summer it may be but there was plenty of ice. And being mid-summer, most of the critters were out of the water, on land preparing for or tending to the newly hatched young. It was quite a staggering site.

My first encounter with penguins was on West Point Island (in the Falklands) where we saw rockhopper penguins nesting in the same area with black browed albatross. They didn’t care that we were there, just carried on with their lives as if they were still all alone.

Salisbury Plain provided me with my first mind-blowing encounter with penguins – it seemed like there were millions of them – king penguins and their young – in all stages of development. It seems a bit trite now but I was pretty overwhelmed by the experience and walked around in a daze for the first half hour or so. In fact, I felt a tear or two form as I stood there entranced by the experience.

Our guides did give us an estimation of the number of penguins in the first major colony and I think, from memory, it was a paltry 250,000 pairs. Though my memory is pretty faulty. It seemed like there was a lot more.

I decided that I loved the chinstrap penguins best – they have a charming personality and an inquisitiveness that brought them into close contact with some of the people on our trip.

They say that we have to keep five metres between us and the penguins – but someone forgot to tell the penguins. It is nothing to be sitting down and have a penguin or two come up to you to start up a conversation. It is really quite wonderful to be amongst wild animals that don’t have a fear of humans. And I enjoyed every moment of our encounters.