Summary of Friday and Saturday

Hi Guys,

I'm a couple of days behind in terms of blogging, other than photos. I had written a blog for Friday, but lost it with the slow internet connection here (or more precisely my lack of patience with the speed of it). So I'll try and combine Friday and Saturdays into one, and still try and keep it under a billion pages :-)

 

So on Friday morning we did a half day Antarctic Field Training. It was the refresher for Glen, as he did the full course last year, but for me it's the first half day of a 2 day course. We learnt about the contents of the survival bags which you use if u get into trouble down here- they contain a tent, sleeping bags, food, cookers etc. Hopefully we won't have to use them! As I'm the only first timer thats arrived at SB since Wednesday, I'm waiting till Tuesday/Wednesday to do the rest of this course. This involves doing cool stuff like sleeping outside..

 

Down here it's a 6 day working week, so Saturday morning saw us complete our Antarctic Driving Licence tests. It's a little different driving down here. Firstly, the vehicles are plugged into a 'hitching rail' which provides power for a heater to stop them all freezing up. Secondly, because there's so many more Americans here, we observe their driving rules- namely we drive on the righthand side of the road, which can take a little getting used to. You also can't use a handbrake as they have a nasty tendency to freeze up, so you have to put chocks under the wheel, and try not to park on a hill!! It's good though- gives us a bit more freedom to head over to Mactown if we need to.

 

In the afternoon we drove the 3km over to Mactown to pick up some survey gear that we need for Monday.. Had a good look around, took a heap of photos and found the shop.. It really is quite like an Alaskan mining town (not that i've been to an Alaskan mining town). I think it's quite full at the moment- there's been really bad weather at the pole, so they haven't been able to get people in there, so they stay at McMurdo. We randomly ran into a Kiwi who's on his way to the pole working for Raytheon (the company that runs the bases) as a builder. It'll be pretty intense working down there I can imagine!

 

So in between all these things, we've been getting our gear sorted, and working out a bit of a program. We've got to be quite flexible, and we work in with other events where we can. Looks like we're heading up to Shackleton's Hut at Cape Royds tomorrow to do some levelling, so that should be a great trip. Hopefully I'll see my first Antarctic wildlife (other than Americans!).

 

The election coverage was playing in the bar last night, so that provided a bit of entertainment.. We can apparently pick up the satellite coverage that TNVZ provide for the Pacific islands, so thats good. I won't bring too many politics into the blog, but we'll just say that I'm happy with the result :-)

 

So yeah, hopefully I'll have some photos of Penguins for you in the next couple of days. Glen and I are off for a walk over to Mactown now to have a look at the shop, and to get some exercise seeing as the foods so ridiculously good here!!