Woman goes to Antarctica to sell postcards and gin

A woman is swapping life in West Yorkshire to spend five months living among penguins while running arguably the world's most remote gift shop.

Dale Ellis, 38, has been chosen alongside four others to look after Port Lockroy, a British Antarctic base on Goudier Island.

The team will travel 9,000 miles from the UK to run the world's southernmost post office and museum, with a colony of gentoo penguins for company.

Ms Ellis, from Leeds, said although there was no running water or flushing toilet, the base has Yorkshire Tea so she could still be a "northerner in the southernmost part of the world".

Ms Ellis, a freelance arts consultant, beat thousands of other applicants to gain the opportunity to run the site through the Antarctic summer as a paid job for the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust (UKAHT).

Once a British military base and research station, Port Lockroy now consists of a post office, a museum and a gift shop.

During their stay, the team will play host to tourists from passing cruise ships as well as keeping an eye on the island's population of about 1,000 penguins.

Along with running the gift shop, where visitors can buy souvenirs such as postcards, Antarctic gin and beanie hats, she will be helping out at the Penguin Post Office.

"So many of my friends want me to send them a postcard, but it will be a race to see whether the postcards arrive home before me," she said.

As part of preparations for their trip, starting next month, team members have gained skills including remote first aid and fire safety.

But Ms Ellis said the most fun part was learning from a penguinologist.

"There's penguin highways on the island - they have created their own little routes to get around and we're not allowed to go on these," she said.

"We also need to make sure the visitors to the island from the ships aren't disturbing the penguins and are respectful of their space."

As for adapting to sub-zero temperatures, Ms Ellis said she didn't have central heating at her home in Headingley so felt "somewhat prepared".

She said she was "ready and excited" to embrace remote life, but would miss her brother's pet dog Yoshi.

While life in the Antarctica will largely be very basic, the team will have some opportunities to use passing cruise ship facilities.

"We will be able to have some dinners on there and use the showers," she said.

"It's a bit of a relief because I've got really curly hair and I was worried it was going to come back a matted mess."

"I never expected to get picked - I thought they were going to want someone who had climbed a mountain or had sailed some scary seas," she said.

"To think that we'll be waking up on a morning and looking out at the penguins and all the different shades of blue and white, it's amazing."

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