To the Ends of the Earth

Endurance: Shackleton and the Antarctic

Quest for the Lost City

Dreaming on Desolation Island


This run of To the Ends of the Earth – the second series of 2000 – told extraordinary tales of human endeavour, spanning the worlds of exploration, archaeology, ecology, history, science and pure adventure. Each film had at its centre a quest that pits the protagonists against extraordinarily challenging circumstances during a journey to one of the far corners of the planet.

In this series, the quests were ...

• Surviving a yacht race in the worst weather ever seen in the Bass Strait between the Australian mainland and Tasmania, which led to the deaths of six men.
  
  
• The hunt in Guatemala for the ruins of what was once the greatest Mayan city of them all.
  
  
• The adventures of journalist (and former MP) Matthew Parris on the most desolate island in the world.

In addition, there was a special feature-length examination of what happened to the explorer Ernest Shackleton and his ship Endurance, a dramatic story of disaster and survival in the Antarctic ice field.

And we revisited The Mystery of the Missing U-Boat – an investigation of the wreck of a World War II German submarine off the coast of New Jersey.

This website – containing masses of information, maps and illustrations – sets each story in context and gives viewers avenues of further exploration.