The Great White Whale: Big Ben on Heard Island

 You may not have heard of Heard! And the sealers who had, liked it that way. A tiny dot of an island, deep in the Southern Ocean, halfway between Australia and South Africa, it was their secret place in the stormiest, most secluded of seas. The sealers sailed away when there was little left to hunt. But in 1947, it became Australian territory. And just like that, at the stroke of a pen, its mighty mountain, this great volcano the sealers named Big Ben, became Australia’s highest and loneliest mountain at 9000 feet, 2745 meters. Over 500 meters higher than Kosciusko.