These are harsh, often hostile and inhospitable places, as far from cocktails and sun loungers as you can get. The landscapes define dramatic, its big sky, big seas, big mountains and the climate can be biblically brutal. When it rains it pours and when it blows cold the vicious air can turn you inside out. But it’s these extremes which mean that when the sun shines and the clouds disperse to wreak havoc on some other wretched vestige of wilderness it can be warm, balmy even, and factor 35 needs to be on hand.

These might be described as the ultimate 'get away from it all' destinations but really one comes here to get to it, right up to it, after all where else on earth can you stand in the shadow of brawling Elephant seals, cough away the heady stench of a hundred thousand penguins or risk being beheaded by an albatross? These are places where we, who love living things, come to witness some of the last great wildlife spectacles on earth, not from the back of a crowded Jeep, but as an audience that the cast will often mingle with. King Penguins have had a poo on my wellies and after a terrible explosion, my camera lens was once covered with Elephant seal snot. It was like Evo-Stick, if you want to know.

The Falklands are the more accessible of the two, you can fly to these islands whilst South Georgia remains a sea voyage away, and while they might lack some of the grandeur and the ostentatious numbers of birds and mammals the latter provides they offer a globally unique opportunity to passively, peacefully and personally explore the wildlife.

Thus needless to say, it is a wildlife photographers paradise. If you ask nicely some of your subjects will smile on demand! Now, its tough and remote here so don't expect a great range of life, its more low diversity/high density and large swathes of the landscape can appear pretty lifeless, but when you reach the colonies then you can star in your very own 'Life on Earth'. The animals are simply tamer and whilst you are asked to give them all a 3m breathing space no one has told them this and if you sit down you are soon embroiled in all of their mad, bad, messy, smelly and sometimes unsavoury business. On about my third day on the Falklands a small Tussock bird landed on my arm, looked me in the eye and squeaked at me until I gave it a sip of my fresh water, a baby albatross spent ten minutes tweaking my bootlaces and I watched a huge pod of dolphins chase fish up the beach right in front of me. I had to pinch myself, at times like this it’s all a bit too much. There are a few key destinations in the archipelago but most visitors spend some time on Sealion Island, which has a hotel and a representative range of all the fauna. I dare you to go and to want to leave.

South Georgia takes the sublime to the ridiculous. As its huge snow capped peaks claw their way out of the mists, great drums roll in your mind to announce your arrival in the lost world. You can’t help but feel a touch of the Columbus as you splash ashore and are greeted by spectacles for which no amount of therapy could prepare you. At Gold Harbour and St Andrews Bay the throngs of King Penguins stretch away to the horizon, they huddle and waddle and bumble about and the few hours you have in their company vanish in an instant, your camera’s sensor is burning hot and your brain struggles for days to actually believe what you've seen. And if you are lucky enough to be ushered into the court of the magnificent Wandering Albatross then you reach some avian Nirvana from which there is no return.

The privilege alters you and if you already had the unenviable capacity to bore pub-mates with your embellished anecdotes, then tales of this encounter will guarantee rigor mortis. Then there’s the history, you can follow in the footsteps of Shackleton, visit his grave and explore the crumbling whaling station Grytviken where he finally found refuge, be careful though the grouchy Fur Seals which lounge amongst the rusting relics pack a nasty nip.

If I rubbed a lamp and a genie offered a day on the Serengeti, a morning in the Galapogos, a rain forest walk or those hours I had with those King Penguins over again . . . I know what I would choose.