Travelling South

[Most of the scientific equipment used in Antarctica travels down on the planes with the people]

I woke up early Thursday morning, well, early for me. At 6am the alarm went off and I crawled out of bed and into the shower. After some delicious cinnamon buns courtesy of my lovely husband Stephen, we packed my bags into the car and drove out to Antarctica New Zealand at the airport.

The flights to Antarctica for Scott Base and McMurdo are a joint operation between the Kiwis and the Americans. The Kiwis provide the space and support and the Americans provide the plane and the pilots. By 7:30, we were checked into the flight and let loose until 8:20 when the briefing video would begin. So I wandered around in the courtyard between the Antarctic research buildings and tried to take in as much of the cool spring morning that I could; a little sparrow singing, the smell of the wet grass and the cool spring air on my cheeks. Antarctica would be much different and I would certainly miss a lot of my new home.

At 8:20 we all filed into the viewing room and sat down to watch the movie on “Going to the Ice”. A friendly voice told us how lucky we were to be going down to Antarctica and that we should follow the rules as it was still a dangerous place to live. We saw pictures of waddling penguins and massive icebergs, frolicking seals and scientists hard at work. We were reminded that we were to take care of ourselves, our friends and the environment we were visiting and that we should save a snack from our lunch bag in case the flight had to boomerang back at the last minute due to bad weather. The lights came up and we were taken through the security screening with our full extreme cold weather gear (ECW) on and led onto a bus. Once everyone was loaded up, we drove across the road onto the tarmac and up to the biggest, greyest plane I have ever seen – the C-17 Globemaster.

After grabbing a bagged lunch, I climbed up the stairs into the belly of the plane. It was like stepping into a warehouse. Cables, pipes and wires wound their way around the interior walls of the plane, creating labyrinth-like designs to follow with the eye. The floor of the plane was packed with wooden crates and metal barrels all the way up to the front with a row of webbed seats along either side for us passengers. I found an empty seat and dropped my gear in front of it, sat down and took off my coat. Then it was all about the wait.

The plane was two things, noisy and windowless. The noise was somewhat easy to deal with as we were provided with ear plugs to wear. They cut out most of the noise and somewhat difficult to talk, so reading and sleeping seemed to be the activity of choice among the 34 other people going down with me. The lack of windows on the other hand was not so easy to deal with. You might think it would be of little consequence to not have windows, but it can be quite unnerving to be jerked around and tumbled about without knowing exactly what is causing it. I couldn’t even tell when we had left the ground on take-off. But take-off we did and for 5 hours we sat, slept, read and ate, waiting for the little door to open at the front of the cabin.

Eventually, they announced our descent and we buckled into our seats for the landing. Despite the -8oC temperature announced over the plane, we had to pull on all our ECW gear before we stepped out of the plane and into the wild space beyond. So on came the mitts and touques (beanie or hat), the boots and the coats and when the door was opened for us to emerge from, the sunshine hit us with its radiant beams welcoming us to the land of snow and ice. We had arrived.

The three of us destined for Scott Base were whisked away before even the last American had descended the stairs and were driven over the 3km road from McMurdo and unloaded at base. We were taken into the briefing room and introduced to life on base. How the base worked, our responsibilities while there and what we were to do in the case of an emergency. We were told which rooms we were in and since we had all been to Scott Base previously, we were then let loose to unpack and settle in before dinner.

[Mount Terror seen from the road between Scott Base and McMurdo]

Getting Ready

Welcome to my blog. I started this story through an invitation of Science Alive in Christchurch, New Zealand, who were interested in following my adventures while doing research down in Antarctica. I am a PhD student at Gateway Antarctica at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch. My research looks at the relationship between New Zealanders and Antarctica, their perceptions and their connections and ultimately, their sense of place. I do this by interviewing people from across New Zealand and collecting stories. It is a lot of fun hearing all sorts of stories from all sorts of different people about how they see Antarctica. It's amazing how one single place can be such a different thing to so many different people.

The one unfortunate thing about this research is that I can do it entirely from New Zealand with no need for travel to Antarctica. Luckily for me, my supervisor had a need for a research assistant this summer on his trip down to the ice. His research looks at the environmental decisions-making process of scientists out in the field. If they see a spill what do they do? What personal or social values guide their actions? And how can we improve our education of people going out in the field so they know what to do and why? These are our research questions for our trip down and the way we will get the answers for them is through questionnaires and interviews with the scientists who are going out in the field.

My first job was to print off and organize all our questionnaires, consent forms and information sheets. There are limited resources at Scott Base, the New Zealand reseach base in Antarctica, and this includes paper. When you are travelling to such a remote place you have to make sure you bring everything with you, there are no shops in Antarctica to nip out to to pick up more paper.

After my printing and folding and sorting was finished, we headed out to Antarctica New Zealand to pick up our cold weather gear. Antarctica New Zealand is the organization in charge of all the operations of Scott Base, including getting people down there and kitting them up so they don't freeze once they get there. We were ushered into change rooms filled with jackets, snow pants, mitts, gloves, hats and boots. Trying everything on to make sure it all fit and signing it out for the duration of our travels. After stuffing my two new bags of gear into the back of the car, I drove off home to pack up the rest of my stuff. What would you pack if you were going someplace cold? Take a look at the picture and see what I packed.

Well, mostly it was t-shirts and jeans. Since we'll be spending most of our time at Scott Base, which is climate controlled and all the buildings are linked by walkways, there is little reason to need all that winter gear when you are inside. But we still have to bring all those coats and boots for when we want to walk over to visit our American neighbours in McMurdo or go for a ski on the sea ice. And after packing all my clothes, I threw in some books and knitting for the evenings.

Once all my bags were packed (I ended up with three - two to check and one carry on), I snuggled into my own bed for one last sleep and dreamt of the day to come.