ON ICE !!

Flying To McMurdo Station

(NOTE: CLICK ON PICS FOR BETTER CLARITY)

Back on October 7th, after a weather delay. We were able to get off the ground in Christchurch. There are no guarantees even when you are within range of landing at McMurdo that the flight will not "boomerabg" back to Christchurch if the flight ops determines it unsafe to land. So there is the possibility of an 11hr round trip for nothing. In this picture is a place called the CDC or Clothing Distribution Center where we pickup our ECW ( they love acronyms) Extreme cold weather gear. Then we go through normal airport type security minus the no fluids in your carry-on bit.

Here is the briefing room we wait in before the flight where we get an introductory video about getting to the continent and the issues one can face while there acclimating. This is the stage just before security.

We are now through security and on to what looks like a prision bus that drives us through a security area and on to the airport grounds. As you can see we are approaching our ride to Antarctica the mighty C-17 Globe Master III. These are big planes capable of carrying 171,000 lbs. That is equivalent to over 100 African elephants. It is 174 feet long and has a 174 foot wing span. Four engines provide 161,600 lbs of thrust which gets it off the ground amazingly quick. The C-17s total max take off weight can be 585,000 lbs! And it flys at 450 knots cruise speed. So we are in McMurdo in about 5.5hrs after take-off.

Inside this cargo giant all 21 of us took up position on either the side jump seats along the side of the aircraft or the standard seat positions where the military put in additional/conventional seats in front of the cargo as you can just see here. I like the jump seats as there are outlets for one to plug in a laptop. The plane is from the 62nd Airlift wing out of McChord AFB WA. The Military calls it Operation Deep Freeze. So we are on our way.

As you can see there is enough room in here that if there were no cargo we could get a good game of foot ball going. I think they might have some saftey concerns with this idea though. I think football at 30,000 feet would be cool!

( Click on Pic, There is a guy sleeping on the floor)

If you get tired, just lay out on the nice cold aluminum floor. Hey, it is still better than coach class on a commercial airline.

I can't believe we landed in the weather we did. It surprised may that the plane made it in and did not turn around. The pilots are truely amazing and safe. Yet everything was clear as we were 10 minutes out then just as we were on final approach a storm blew in rapidly, almost instantaneously. When we got off the plane it was hard to stand and the visibility was limited to about 50 yards at best. It was a balmy -35 outside..

Usually this shot shows the magnificant Royal Society Mountain range behind the plane, but with the storm it is hard to see past it 50 feet.

As quickly as it came, the visibility started to come back. But the winds were still whipping and biting. "Wow it has some teeth to it", I thought. In the back ground is a big all-terrain bus nick named "Ivan the Terra Bus" We board him to get back to base.

On Board IVAN!! I made it to McMurdo for my fourth time!

A Fair Day in Christchurch Oct.4th, 2010

A Fair Day In Christchurch

While waiting to get flown to Antarctica I relished in an amazing spring day in the "Garden City" of south New Zealand. A walk in the Botanical Gardens as well as a jog around Hagley Park allowed for some fine photos of impressive trees that are tended to here. The one on the left I call Erins Big Oak as she fell in love with it last year when she was here. I say hi to it every time I go by and tell the old boy how she misses him. The one to the right is my favorite. I just call it the Big Boy. "It is a Mountain Ash the pre-eminent tree in the gardens: the huge Alpine Ash (Eucalyptus delegatensis). Regarded as the world's most massive broadleaf tree and possibly also the tallest, this native of southeastern mainland Australia and Tasmania seems very much at home in Canterbury and large specimens are common here, though few can match this beauty. " borrowed from {Trees of Christchurch Botanical Gardens}.

Another favorite of mine and Erin's is the blooming of the Jasmine bushes (behind my mug shot). Their smell is overpowering but heavenly. I wish I could package up the smell and send it home to Erin who is going into Fall now.

These were some pictures of a couple of the historical government buildings. Notice the one on the right has not done too well with the earthquake and after shocks.

Speaking of aftershocks we had a good one tonight ( oct 4th 2010) at magnitude 5.0!!

Christchurch New Zealand - First Stop

New Zealand

My travels to Antarctica started with a long day and night of travels. I left Billings Montana September 23rd, 2010. The First leg of the journey flew me to Salt Lake City, Utah. Then on to LosAngeles, California where I boarded a large Quantas A330 that flew me over the next 14 hours to Auckland New Zealand. Upon going through customs they were very adamant about washing my sneakers due to some mud on them. In New Zealand they are very concerned with bio security, so I gave in and stood shoeless for 5 minute. To their credit the shoes have never looked better. Off I went to my next flight that would land me in Christchurch. In Christchurch it has become customary to stay in the Windor Bed and Breakfast. It is a warm elegant place with perfect balance of convenience and New Zealand atmosphere. It had sustained minor damage to it's chimmneys during the recent earth quake here. Yet Don and his crew carried on. They have the scaffold up and rebuilding going on.

All throughout Christchurch are examples of the power of that quake. Many of the victims were the Ood and dilapidated builings. The churches harbored damage to their high decorative gable ends and garnishments. I was impressed how quickly the structures were stabilized given the size of the earthquake.

Going South to Oamaru

After a couple days in Christchurch I ventured south to the city of Oamaru. It is a town of 13,000 about a 3 hour bus ride from Christchurch through the eastern farm land of Southern NZ. Wikipedia has a great overview of the town: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oamaru. My destination was the Sherman Farm in Weston just outside Oamaru. Gail and Zim Sherman along with their son Levi and faithful dog Blaze provided a fantastic Work-for-Stay farm experience. They often host WOOFers in exchange for a few hours of work a day.

Meet Gail, Zim (David), Levi ( in true form) Also around somewhere chasing rabbits is Blaze the faithful sheep dog.

Here are the are the faithful milk cows. These along with about 4 more provide subsistance for the family in the dairy products rhelm. They are a focal point of the off season work. The milk , Zim told me, really improved when the cows got on new fresh green grass this spring. I can attest to the wonderful taste and cream. Now all we need are the vegetables the summer will soon bring.





Zim took part of a day and showed me around Oamaru.

It is a fantastic unknown destination. The City is a bussling center of small single proprieter shops and cottage industries. One in particular of interest was Michael O'Brien book binder. This husband and wife team carries on the dying art of rebinding and restoring old books. They do actually create new books for journals and custom items. The shop looks like a piece of time circa 1880's as the equipment they were using dated certainly close to that age. I felt as if I walked into the past. We then satisfied our appetite with a stop at the local bakery where we indulged in two baked breakfast pies each. A walk through the Botanical Gardens was astounding as its 30 acres seemed like hundreds all ordained in exquisit landscaping and waterscaping.



At the farm we spent time planting seeds for the coming season. The firewood pile had to get re-arranged so as to facilitate drying for this coming winter's heat source. Note that their hot water is generated via the kitchen woodstove's water circuit. So when they need hot water, someone has to get the fire going in the morning. Yet a short wood fire produces enough boiling hot water for the entire day in part to an ingenious hotwater tank used for storage (270 liter cap.). All the water is gravity fed from a roof mounted tank that the well pump feeds.

Zim and Gail are fantastic cooks. They prepare meals of a quality and flavor found only in fine restaurant in a major city. Their small community, though full of almost every nessesity, lacked a variety of fine food quisine so Zimm and Gail took it upon themselves to create their own specialty meals using a great percentage of their own produce for the meal. Another great skill to pick up here is bread making. Zim is very excited to show one how to make many types of bread, even traditional types like Challah. This is a traditional Jewish bread that has a woven loaf form. It was so good I could not stop speaking of it for three days. I look forward to baking a few loaves of this myself.


My accommodation was a quaint little recycled cabin that had some very modern conveniences like hot water sink, my own restroom - composting toilet, and large foldout bed with heating blanket. This is paradise for a WOOFER or farm intern. Plus I was able to get on the wireless internet from the cabin. Nice!







Pretty nice huh? Well Stop by and work for a while. His contact info is:
zim.sherman@gmail.com
But please no loafers. They are a hard working farm family and need your help in exchange for stay.