Visually and emotionally, the island of South Georgia overwhelms. At first glance, it resembles the far South Atlantic branch of a fantastic zoo: a profusion of captivating animals that quickly transforms even the most discriminating observer into a raving anthropomorphic. Its conglomeration of dark peaks, white glaciers, snow and ice, green tussock grasses and mosses, brown mud and bogs and colourful animals suggests no landscape that the masters' brushes have rendered. Its mountains have been dubbed the 'Alps of the Southern Ocean', and its surrounding waters remain among the world's richest. The resident human population is zero, the penguin, seabird and seal population is boundless, and the resulting minority status for human beings does wonders for one's psyche. This far-flung outpost lacks plane trails in the sky, rock music in the streets, garbage in the landscape, and blathering politicians immersed in inconsequential minutiae. In their stead, one's ears tune quickly to the whistling and calling king penguins, the bleating, growling fur seals, and the belching and grunting elephant seals. South Georgia is for contemplative types, offering refuge from the schisms of daily existence on our crowded planet.