Christmas on Ice, Part 4 - Scott Base

Arriving back at Scott Base after 10 days in the field was absolutely wonderful, if a little shocking. Hot showers, other people, no need to spend hours melting snow into water so you don't dehydrate the next day, flush toilets. Ahhhhhh, all we had to do before we could enjoy any of that (except of course the toilets) was clean up all our gear. . .

Clean up included washing and drying all sleeping bags, all dishes, all cook boxes, stoves and cutlery, emptying food boxes of any leftovers, airing the tents and then putting it all away. Oh yeah, and someone had to deal with all the shit.

Finally we could enjoy the pleasures of the kitchen. . .

the common room. . .

and yes, even the hallways that connect everything together.

Of course, with McMurdo Station only a 2km walk away, a trip over (or two) was essential, if only to visit the gift shop ;) Observation hill is the tall mountain-like thing on the left.

McMurdo is very different from Scott Base. Mostly it's just bigger.

And a little bit messier.

But it has a really cool collection of weird and wonderful toys to play with. We were lucky enough to catch the tail end of an art show that took place at the carpentry shop there. Chrissie and I are demonstrating the joys of a homemade seesaw.

Someone had also made one of those cool executive desk bouncing ball type thingys out of bowling balls. It was cool.

It was amazing to see and experience the differences between Scott Base and McMurdo. Where Scott Base reminded me more of a mining or exploration camp with its tight knit community and completely self-suficient lay out, McMurdo reminded more of a mining town, sprawling, mucky, and big, everything there was big. You can see Discovery Hut in the foreground here, unfortunately, due to proximity to people, this hut has been heavily looted.

The view of McMurdo from atop Observation Hill. The big white circle tanks are holding all the fuel needed for Scott Base and McMurdo to run for a year, including petrol, diesel, and jet fuel.

Scott Base on the walk home from McMurdol. So different.

Just a pretty picture of the pressure ridges around Scott Base.

Why didn't they show this to me earlier? It so would have helped me avoid all the awkward situations I had with penguins on my trip. I thought he just wanted to dance.

Sign says it all. The building in the background is the kitchen and common room.

Erebus out beyond the pressure ridges on the day we left. A lovely farewell from a cold continent.
Everyone waiting for the plane to park.

Then we were off. Back into the great, grey warehouse, into the sky and home again.

Christmas on Ice, Part 2 - Arrival

Finally, we came to a stop. We could unbuckle our seat belts, pile on our ECW gear and get off the place into the wide, white world beyond.

And man oh man was it white. Although the temperatures made all our survival gear a little overkill, the sunglasses were definitly necessary. Everyone had smiles the size of saucers and cameras were clicking everywhere.

We were guided off the runway by military personel towards our next transport, Ivan, the Terra Bus.

After a half hour of driving across ice and snow, we bumped up onto solid ground and drove into McMurdo where we switched from bus to truck and drove over to Scott Base. Driving into McMurdo reminded me so much of Inuvik. Gravel roads, dusty everything, and lots of metal, square buildings. The 2km drive from McMurdo to Scott Base goes up between two extinct volcano cones to emerge on the otherside of the Hut Point Peninsula. The kiwi base, in comparison to the American one, is tiny and green (not in reference to environmental awarness, just colour) and it reminds me more of a mining camp all self contained (hallways connect each building so there's no need to leave the comfort of the indoors). We were ushered from our vehicles, into a big green, steel building and up into a warm little room where we learned the basics of staying in Antarctica and on Scott Base.

After a delicious dinner, served in the cafeteria, we all took a walk down to the sea ice. Just a few hundred meters in front of Scott Base, where sea ice is pushed up by the tides, are a collection of pressure ridges scultped by the sea and the wind. It is a beautiful, ever changing gallery of crystalline forms and scattered in amongst the colunms are the most regular visitors, the Weddell seals.

We wandered back towards base where some of the students scrambled into costumes to join in the fun of the James Bond party being held that night at the base bar.

The next morning, before packing, we went up Crater Hill, the volcano behind Scott Base. It was pretty windy and not very sunny, but the temperatures hovered around -7 degrees centigrade and everyone enjoyed the views.

These are the first 3 wind turbines in Antarctica. They were just coming online while we were there. It is expected they will reduce the amount of desiel used by both Scott Base and McMurdo by ~11%. There are some people who question their usefulness here and don't like the aesthetic impact they have, but I wonder if we are to continue being down in Antarctica for scientific purposes because of it's "early warning" capabilities with regards to climate change shouldn't we at least be trying to reduce our footprint to be here?

One of the students enjoying the small comfort a wind block wihle at the top.

McMurdo from Crater Hill.

Walking along the edge of the crater. In the background and to the left, Mount Erebus hides behind some clouds.

Heading back to base, ready to start packing for our next big adventure. Camping on the ice shelf.

While everyone packed food and tents and cooking stuff, Crystal, Steve, Sean and I met up with Alex to get our licences for driving on the ice. We were taught how to drive Hagglunds, skidoos and trucks (Landcruisers to be precise - although the only difference I noticed was that the top speed was 20km/h). That night, our personal and group bags packed, we snuggled into bed for one last night in a warm room. The next morning we would be leaving nice and early to get out to camp and set up our tents and dig some pits. It would be a busy day.

Did you know

That the phone numbers for Antarctica New Zealands' Scott Base are in the Christchurch phone book. And that calling there from Christchurch is a local call.