Like most of us, Daisy Gilardini has to work for a living. She is an accountant and tax consultant in her home country of Switzerland.

In her 'other' life, though, far beyond the suffocating closeness of her office walls, she is a extreme explorer. In speaking about this she muses: "I think that life is very short and you never know what is going to happen, so we shouldn't waste it. For this reason I save up my money and try to do what I like most to do, which is to travel in search of adventure and nature."

And that she does. In 1997 Daisy semi-circumnavigated the Antarctic aboard the icebreaker, Kapitan Khlebnikov, departing from Stanley in the Falkland Island and arriving in New Zealand. Later she visited Kamchatka, a remote area of Russia. In 2001 she traveled aboard a Russian icebreaker, the Kapitan Dranitsyn, in search of the Emperor Penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri) in the Weddell Sea.

Emperor penguins are found in the Antarctic regions. About 220,000 stable breeding pairs roam around these frigid ice shelves but in order to see them one must brave serious weather and travel conditions. Imagine Daisy, if you will, as she finds her way to the superior deck of an icebreaker in the middle of a violent wind storm where the ship is at the mercy of six-meter high waves and she is rolling at an angle of 50-degrees. The racket of the bow banging violently against the waves is deafening and the water has no problem reaching the deck which is thirty meters above sea level:

"Covered up very well and armed with my heavy photographic equipment," says Daisy, "I open the door, push with all my force and only after a great effort I sneak into that little passage that separates myself from mother nature. I take my first step but the strength of the wind prevents me from moving - I lose my balance and like lightning grab the railing close by. I nearly fall down. From then on the railing becomes my steady and best friend. Clinging to it I venture onto the staircase which I climb on all fours to avoid the jolting due to the wind that is now coming from every direction with incredible violence. Once I am at the top I realize that I have to abandon my faithful friend if I want to reach my final destination - an instant of hesitation - an instant of reflection -if I do an accurate calculation of the elapsing time between a gust of wind and the other I should be able to leave one banister to jump to another without falling down."

In the face of such power Daisy closes her eyes and experiences pure wild nature.

"After only a few minutes that seem like eternity I open my eyes and realize that I really am a little crazy. The cold is biting but I cannot retreat, not before taking some shots. I put my heavy rucksack on the floor and take out my camera...the first click...the second....the third... then...a noise is drawing my attention. My photographic bag, heavy with 14 kg of equipment, is moving along the deck assisted by the wind. I nearly faint and without a second thought I jump over it and tie it up to the always faithful railing. I hold out against the storm for a few long and very intense minutes until the adrenaline in my blood slows, and I realize that the two pairs of gloves and socks, the boots filled with seven layers of stuffing, the cap, the scarf, the three layers of trousers, the two pullovers and the Gore Tex jacket will not protect me much longer. Now I have to go all the way back to reach the warmth of the control desk..."

The Emperor penguin is considered to be the only true Antarctic penguin, according to Daisy. Unlike all the others species the Emperor penguin's reproduction cycle takes place during the long and dark winter days when the temperature can get as low as minus 60° C and winds can howl up to 200 km/h. The thought of a close encounter with such an animal is very exciting to the passengers aboard the icebreaker. Everybody is eager to land on the ice shelf but the wait proves to be long and mother nature first shows them the worst face of the Antarctic continent.

"On November 20th we meet with the pack ice and we suddenly understand the reason why only the icebreakers can venture so far south. I spend hours and hours on the command deck observing in amazement the force of the six diesel engines which are operating at full tilt. With the passing of the hours the ice is growing thicker and thicker and soon our cruising speed will slow down from 15 to 7 knots. The enthusiasm to observe the working of an icebreaker is dampened when we realize that the pack ice is becoming a problem."

"The stormy winds of the previous day," she continues, "together with the sea tides have pushed the ice towards the coast leaving no room for the icebreaker to pass through. The ship is now obliged to shatter the ice with the bow to try to make a way. For hours we proceed slowly with the engines working laboriously, backwards and forwards against the ice. Backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards; after three days of fierce battle we sight a "polynya," the Russian word to describe an open water space within the pack ice. In front of us is the Fimbul Ice Shelf and on a small iceberg, a group of Adelia penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae) is bringing excitement to the passengers who are by now exhausted after four days of nothing but ice. Within a few minutes the zodiacs are on the water and everybody is ready to debark. Cautiously we approach the small colony that is watching incredulously such strange creatures coming out of a huge metal giant anchored only few hundred meters from their quiet and comfortable summer residence. A leopard seal is resting on the ice shelf and a little way ahead we catch our first sight of the Emperor penguins."

Daisy always chooses remote destinations which are less accessible and above all, away from the flow of mass tourism. She has photographed the brown bear at Brooks (Katmai) as well as on Kodiak Island in Alaska where she was charged by a 'mum with two cubs who suddenly decided that we were too close." She flew to Kronostky National Park (from Kamchatka in Russia) by helicopter and was left there for a couple of weeks with a guide and an interpreter in search of grizzly bears.

Polar bears in Churchill, cats and leopards and cheetah in Namibia, Lemurs in Madagascar, orangutan in Indonesia - these, too, have been the subject of Daisy's extreme pursuits. This last spring she visited the magestic slot canyons in Arizona, an adventure of yet another sort. Not so long ago she flew to Catania in Sicily to experience and photograph Mount Etna.

Says Daisy of this experience: "A thrill overwhelmed us when we realized that the thunder we heard was not that of an approaching storm but the gas explosions in the active crater over our heads. The excitement grew, as well as slight uneasiness, discomfort, anxiety and maybe even fear as the charm, the curiosity and the attaction for the infuriated mountain became now irresistible."

They visited La Sapienza Refuge where a fire brigade was feverishly fighting against the lava flow that was seriously endangering local infrastructures.

Finally, they could go no farther. Says Daisy: "Only few meters in front of us hell's door had opened. The magma is boiling under our feet and exploding over our heads with a deafening rumble and an incredible violence. Paralysed, we are unable to make this event out and we are overwhelmed by a whirl of thoughts and feelings of creation, destruction, power, powerlessness, fear, happiness, terror, and excitement. After some moments of pure bewilderment the caterpillar's noise reminds us that we are still alive and are witnesses to the frenetic fight between David and Goliath. Man is struggling in order to save as much as he can from the fire thong that is coming out of mother earth's mouth. The most modern technologies are on the spot - satellite communication systems, laser rays, sophisticated equipment for detecting earth movements, excavators, buldozers, and engineers ready with explosives in order to try to divert the direction of the lava flow."

Meanwhile, down in the valley, the people parade in a procession appealing to their saint protectors to save them from the fury of the volcano.

So what's next on the extreme adventurer's agenda?

Daisy is thinking about a trek to the Amazon to see the giant river otters and another to Belize to photograph the oncelot and the cougar. Even desert landscapes in the Sahara (in Libya and Chad) beckon her.