IT’S the journey of a lifetime and one sure to make the history books.

Cunard’s luxury cruise liner the Queen Victoria made her way majestically down one of the world’s longest rivers at dawn on Wednesday morning as part of a 120 night trip around the world.

The luxury liner is now the biggest passenger ship to ever sail the Amazon into Manaus, the rainforest city which lies 1550 miles from the sea in the heart of the world’s largest and most biodiverse tract of tropical rainforest.

And the trip gave nearly 2,000 lucky passengers the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of seeing first-hand the natural spectacle that is the meeting of the waters, where the black Rio Negro meets the murky brown Amazon.

Making her way from Barbados and arriving at the Amazon on January 22, the Queen Victoria will now make her way back up the river to Santarém, before heading off past Macapá to Rio de Janeiro - stopping at a total of 32 ports on the 41,000 nautical mile voyage and finally docking in Southampton on May 5.

Photographer Chris Ison - who is based near Havant - was flown out to document the event, shooting the ship’s arrival into Manaus from a helicopter at dawn.

Speaking to the Daily Echo direct from Brazil, the 47 year old, said: “Just on Sunday Manaus had one month’s rainfall in the space of one afternoon - and of course that could have been today, so it was pretty major - it could have all gone completely out of the window.

“But it was stunning, flying over the rainforest at dawn. Seeing it from the helicopter at sunrise was just spectacular.”

The Amazon is the largest river by discharge of water in the world
Some experts reckon it to be the longest in length at 4,345 miles. It runs from Cordillera in Peru to Macapá in Brazil.

The Amazon basin is the largest drainage basin in the world with an area of 2,720,000 square miles.