Christchurch, New Zealand for 3 glorious days

 

 
Flowers at the Christchurch Botanical Gardens

 The first leg of my journey back to Antarctica was a Thursday night red-eye flight out of Los Angeles to Auckland, New Zealand. I spent most of the flight processing photos from the Santa Barbara Invite. We landed on Saturday morning because you lose an entire day crossing the international date line. After clearing customs, I got my next flight to Christchurch on the South Island.

Curators House at the Christchurch Botanical Gardens

Punting on the Avon at the Christchurch Botanical Gardens

Christchurch is one of my favorite cities in the world. It's the right size, has amazing people, old English style architecture mixed in with modern post-2011 earthquake architecture, it's a quick drive to the mountains or a short bike ride to the beach, and has amazing greenery that calls out to me. This greenery butting up against visits to the desolation of Antarctica might unfairly bias me toward liking Christchurch. Hard to say, but not hard to say I love it there and would love to live there again.

New Regent Street, just across from my Fable hotel in Christchurch

I had 3 full wonderful days in Christchurch filled with good eats, good friends, and some last stretching of my legs in the sunshine. On Saturday, I explored the amazing Botanical Gardens and went to a BBQ with my old Christchurch ultimate teammates. It was so great to catch up and pet their dogs before I am dog deprived on the Ice.  On Sunday, I was off to the CDC to pick up my Antarctic gear. Then I spent a few hours at the CDC scanning incredibly hard to find historical ultimate frisbee documents that one of those BBQ friends had for ultimate-reference.com. I closed out the day with a bike ride to Sumner beach with Crystal and Josh. The winding route they chose was almost entirely bike lanes and paths. Such a treat, even with getting a bit too much sun on the tops of my legs.

Sunday, I spent way too much of the day working through mandatory online training and processing ultimate photos, but I wrapped up the day better than I could have imagined. Before all this chaos of me going to the Ice started, my 2011 Antarctic roommate was planning on traveling to New Zealand to visit old friends. By chance, their flight out of Christchurch overlapped with my 3 days there so we were able to catch up and meet the latest addition to her family, Waylon.

Meg, Waylon, and Me.

My final morning before heading to the airport at 5:45am for my flight to Antarctica, I was up WAY too early. I went out for a last run around the gardens to soak in the smells. On my way back, I noticed that they had decorated for the Chinese New Year this coming Saturday. At first, I just saw the lanterns, but then I saw this amazing goodness sitting in the Avon to celebrate the incoming Year of the Dragon. After a last really long hot shower, I was off to the airport for my flight to the Ice.

A lantern dragon sitting in the Avon River in Christchurch to celebrate the Year of the Dragon.

The Peacock Fountain at the entrance to the Christchurch Botanical Gardens (not taken when I ran through in the dark, but still appreciated.)

Back to the Ice once more

If you are reading this, then you know I have gone back to work another season in Antarctica to support science for the United States Antarctic Program. In the past, I worked at McMurdo Station on the coast as a PC Tech. This time, I am going to Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station for the winter season with ~42 other folks. (In the summer, there are around 150.) There will no planes in or out from around February 15^th until November 1^st. I will be indirectly supporting the science there as a senior system administrator.

 

 

 

 

Antarctica is the world's largest and driest desert. Yet, over 97% of the continent is covered with ice, containing an estimated 90% of the earth's freshwater. Its area Is about 1.5 the area of the United States. At this time, no country owns Antarctica because of the 1961  Antarctica Treaty. The treaty is recognized by 54 countries. It reserves the area south of 60° latitude for the peaceful conduct of research. 30 countries currently have around 80 permanent bases in Antarctica. The United States has 3 permanents bases: Palmer Station (since 1968, 64°46' S, 64°03’ W), McMurdo Station (since 1956, 77°51' S, 166°40' E) and Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station (since 1957, rebuilt a 3^rd time in 2008, 90° S). 

 

 

 

To get to Palmer Station, you fly to Chile and then take a 4-5 day boat journey across the Drake Passage to the Antarctic Peninsula. Crossing the Drake is one of the roughest boat journeys in the world. When most folks take a cruise to Antarctica, the peninsula is the area that they go to. It is a bit warmer and teeming with marine wildlife.  To get to McMurdo Station, you fly commercially to Christchurch, New Zealand and then to McMurdo in a military plane (C-17 or LC-130). On a C-17, the flight takes about 5 hours to cover the 2,378 miles to McMurdo, located on the southern tip of Ross Island, where the southernmost navigable harbor on Earth is (important for getting supplies to the bases). To get to South Pole, you take another 850-mile flight from McMurdo. This can be on a bunch of different propeller driven planes including the LC-130, Twin Otter, or Basler. If you are lucky, none of your flights get turned around due to bad weather, which is called boomeranging and is not fun.

My journey back to the Ice started on a red eye flight on Thursday, February 1st.

I'm slowly learning how to write this type of stuff again, more to come.