Air NZ Blog #7 - Darryn

Last weekend we had a once in a lifetime chance to overnight out at Cape Evans next to Scott and Shackleton's hut.. The Antarctica Heritage Trust (AHT) kindly offered us use of their huts for the trip. These opportunities do not come by often and this year only around 30 people will get the chance

Preparation for the trip began on Tuesday, when our group of nine was assigned tasks to ensure when we left on Saturday we had everything we needed to spend a night out at the Cape – including sufficient provisions to handle any inclement weather.

On Saturday our regular base meeting and finishing the day’s work, we loaded up our transport – the mighty green Hagglund – and headed out to Cape Evans. The journey took approximately two hours across the Ross Sea ice. On arrival our first priority was ensuring we had shelter set up for the overnight stay so team quickly worked together and within 30 minutes our camp was established All food was stored inside the AHT hut, and we sat down together to work out our plans for the evening and Sunday.  Dinner was a hearty meal of nachos.

We then set off to explore the area and the Cape Evans hut at our own leisure.  The area around our campsite had several sets of seal bones. It appears that seals attempt to cross the peninsula at Cape Evans but don’t always make it. The walk to the Cape Evans hut took approximately 15 minutes andthen had a couple of hours to explore the area. On previous trips our time had been limited due to the distance we had to travel, but with an overnight stay we could take our time and really explore. This was my third trip to the hut and each time I found something new inside that I hadn’t seen before. Exploring further afield around the hut produced more and more finds. It is really quite extraordinary how Scott and his men lived out here in the cold with no readily available resources. You could find remnants of them everywhere – where some of them had tried to build a hut using stones to store waste, the old chain and fittings that Scott's dogs would have been tied up to, and storage areas where they had stacked wooden boxes of supplies. Most were still intact but some had been broken apart, the wood used to build walls on their main dwelling.

We finally finished exploring and returned to camp around 11pm. We enjoyed a hot drink, chocolate and Tim Tams before heading off to our sleeping bags. It is strange going to bed after midnight on camp and finding it is still full daylight, but sleep came easy.

The following morning we had a chance to explore further. I took the chance to put some micro-spikes on my boots and head out onto the sea ice for a five kilometre walk to the Barne Glacier. Our field trainer gave us instructions on what to look out for and approximate distance to remain clear of the glacier. For us, it was gauging the height of the glacier and keeping twice that distance away. As we walked across the ice it was quite amazing to think that within weeks this would be part of the Ross Sea again. As we got closer to the glacier you started to understand the immense size of it, as well as see massive cracks where it was getting ready to break away from the mainland. The glacier itself appeared to be at least 100 metres high. It’s hard to imagine the age of the ice at the base of the glacier – probably tens of thousands of years old.

For the first time in five weeks I saw a bird flying. As the sea ice starts to reside the Skuas [a type of Antarctic seabird] start coming in closer. This one was caught flying over and around us, looking for anything it could scavenge.

Following this we headed to the Erebus Tongue Glacier to look through the ice caves. This provided another great chance to see things I missed the first time. It is quite incredible how delicate ice crystals form when there is no wind and very little disturbance. Compared to my visit three days earlier, the caves had already changed. In some, more light was coming in as the snow on top either melted or is blown away. This time we were able to go further into the caves to see where ice bridges and holes had formed.

The rest of my week has been fairly routine, with regular trips out to Pegasus Airfield to collect passengers and freight off the C17. Then it was out to Williams Field to load a dozen 44 gallon barrels of aviation fuel onto the Bassler (DC3) for prestaging further afield to support helicopter operations at remote points on the continent. The weather has again had an impact on aircraft operations in and out of Antarctica, with no flights operating since Wednesday. At the moment, 22 November is the last scheduled C17 operation until next year. This means my return home will be approximately eight hours on an RNZAF Hercules.

Saturday evening proved to be a bonus – one of the local resident Weddell Seals gave birth to a pup. When I wandered out onto the pressure ridges to take some photos, the pup was about two hours old.