The greatest adventure story ever told

It's a big call for the title of a book, "The greatest adventure story ever told", and I must admit, I was skeptical. But if you've got some spare cash, you'd be hard pushed for a more mind bending adventure. It might be a boy thing, but I'm pretty sure this will bake your noodle either way.

Shackelton started off to cross the Antartic - but before he even landed, his boat (The Endurance) got caught in an ice flow and over a period of a week or 2 the most modern and expensive ice going vessel of 1914 was crushed into pieces no bigger than your dining room table.

Thus began a 2 year (that's right, 2 year!) trek of survival. They spend most of it camped out on an ice pack drifting slowely towards a deserted island (no palm trees and coconuts here though - just a frozen lump of rock) from where they could launch their row boats for the 650 mile journey across the worst sea in the world to another lump of rock where there was a whaling station.

For 2 years they ate penguin and seal blubber, were almost never dry, spent 3 months in south pole winter (24 hrs of darkness) all got frostbite, had to kill and eat their sleigh dogs . . . the list goes on. But instead of re writing the book here, I'll let you go read it yourself.

It taught me 2 things.

1. The burden of command. For those of us who have people under their charge it can be a weighty load to bear. Most of us aren't trying to keep 27 others alive on an iceberg, but to be a leader is like being a parent, you worry that your best might not be good enough.

2. You can always push harder, go further, last longer. I now believe that we usually fail because we give up, not because all is lost.

"Success is never final, failure is never fatal. Courage is what counts.”
Churchill