David McGonigal

David McGonigal was born in Sydney, Australia though has lived around the world, most recently on ships in the polar regions. After completing Arts and Law degrees (largely majoring in motorcycle road racing) David dropped out of the legal profession to ride around the world and returned to Australia years later as a travel writer/photographer. That career progressed to contributions to magazines and newspapers worldwide, several awards and some fifteen books from "Wilderness Australia" (his first) to a Thai cookbook and adventure guides. On three successive years, assignments took him to all seven continents. He's a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a Life Member and Past-President of the Australian Society of Travel Writers. After his first visit to Antarctica in 1995 he became polar impassioned and worked on projects with Sir Edmund Hillary and others. He led his first Antarctic trip in 1999 and has been back every year since. He has visited the polar regions more than 100 times - often as Expedition Leader. In 1997 he briefly rode in Antarctica and so became the first person ever to motorcycle on seven continents (and through all 24 time zones). He's SCUBA dived, white-water rafted and sailed throughout the world (most memorably through SE Asia, Tahiti and to Cape Horn) and now part-owns a motor sailplane. He has visited Russia and Lapland in winter, travelled the NW and NE Passages, and motorcycled to the top of Alaska and Norway (via Siberia) as well as visited both sides of Antarctica. David was co-author of the 608-page "Antarctica - the Complete Story" and the smaller "Antarctica - The Blue Continent" (now translated into German, Dutch, Estonian, French, Italian, Russian and Japanese) as well as the newish 400-page "Antarctica - Secrets of the Southern Ocean". His photographs have been exhibited around the world.