After several false starts and messages telling us our flight to McMurdo was happening, I finally arrived at the US base late last week. We were all set for a "shoot through", going from our plane onto the Hercules and out to Casey. My stupidity paid off nicely when the pilots saw me goofing around the front of the Herc taking dorky pictures and generally being a nuisance. They offered me the jump seat on the flight deck. This turned out to be fantastic for two reasons 1) the rear seats of a hercules are bloody uncomfortable and noisy 2) the view as you fly over the dry valleys, the only place in Antarctica permanently without snow or ice, is breathtaking. The pilots weren't bad company either. Unfortunately the joy ended 3 hours into our flight when bad weather closing in at the Casey skiway meant we had to boomerang. Our 4 hour flight turned into a 6 hour epic. I had my first patient as a result of this. Too afraid to drink because he didn't want to use the Hercules toilet, I had a guy so dehydrated we had to put him an IV and fluids.
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My first viewing of Antarctica - the sea ice runway at McMurdo Station
HERCULES! My first time flying in a military plane
The friendly Herc pilots, navigator and engineer
The dry valleys |
The Americans at McMurdo were incredibly welcoming. Thinking we were going to be there for one night only, they arranged a tour of the Ob Tube and Scott's Hutt.The Ob Tube is a metal pipe that goes 4m down below the sea ice. You then sit in a plastic box and can watch the sealife go past. I couldn't get my camera down the tube sadly because it was too narrow and I only had the behemoth Nikon. Incredibly, there are sea stars and irridescent fish.
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The sea ice hole. You can enter the observation tube next to it to see down.Fine as long as you don't mind small spaces
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We also went to visit Scott's hut, the first hut he built in Antarctica. The Americans have done a fantastic job of preserving it, exactly the way it was when he left - right down to the semi-preserved seal, sheep and penguin carcasses. Seeing how small and damn cold the hut was, it's clear why the early days of polar exploration are referred to as the heroic era. You had to be a mad bastard to brave this place with no protection from the wild winds and chill.
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| Standing in the entrance to Scott's Hutt trying to warm up |
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Cooking equipment and in the foreground, dead penguins
The meat locker - an anti-room build off the main living area of Scott's hut
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Bad weather at Casey persisted, so we ended up staying several days at McMurdo. Their recreation system is very different from ours. Rather than teaching field skills and promoting independent travel on unmarked but known routes, the US have a trail system called the Ross Island trail system. It's a series of ski and hiking trails that go on both the sea ice and the surrounding volanic mountains. While the system is incredibly beautiful, it's limited to 4 trails, each of which can be done easily in a day. We hiked up observation hill, named for the failed expedition lead by Shackleton. Each day his remaining party would climb Ob Hill and look for signs of his party returning, not knowing they had perished from hypothermia. The men erected a cross in memory of those who died. It's a great hike not only because you can see the corss but it also provides incredible views over the sea ice and surrounding mountains.
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| Looking over the sea ice from McMurdo at midnight |
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| Trail marker |
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The memorial cross on Observation Hill
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