Christchurch, NZ: Round 2

Back in Christchurch on the way home. I got to spend 2.5 more days in New Zealand and once again, I LOVED IT! Here is another shot of Cathedral Square.

The market at Cathedral Square where you can get a bunch of New Zealand goods like sheep skins, wool and leather goods, native jewelry and tons of other stuff.

Here is yet another picture of the Avon River and its beauty. Remember, this flows right through Christchurch and it is lined with parks along the entire way...beautiful. When the sun comes out, locals and tourists all lounge along the grassy banks...sooo cool.

I figured I would give the hostel life a try while I was there (and get a taste of what to look forward to with the round the world). This was Base Backpackers right accross from the Cathedral in Cathedral square. I am SO glad I decided to spend a night here! In the lounge, I met Jordan from Saskatchewan, Canada (yea go Canada!), Nina from Denmark, and Mike from England. We all hit it off right away and ended up wandering around town looking for a fish and chips joint, hitting up an Irish pub (Nina had NEVER been to one!) and talking about our travels and homes the entire time! We then went back to Base where some of the Kiwis that worked at the hostel invited us to a party they were having. The party was awesome as it was comprised mostly of people from the hostel and everyone had great stories about their travels and places seen. My Everglades endeavour went over very well with everyone there. They had a sweet karaoke system that hooked up to the Playstation allowing people to have "sing off's" against each other...and trust me, EVERY party should have this as it got everyone to shake off any worries and just have fun! We also found out that the house we were partying in used to be a brothel! It was wild, and they even had the old warning to client stickers on the walls informing "clients" of the brothel about how to avoid STD's and sharing drug paraphernalia...crazy night!

So the next day I woke up early to catch a shuttle bus out of town to the Akaroa Peninsula. Yes, New Zealand is this beautiful, and the picture BARELY does justice. The peninsula was formed millions of years ago by three volcanoes that are now very dead. They left behind this amazing hills and harbours that make up the peninsula that juts out of the otherwise amazingly flat Canterbury Plains. The harbours in the peninsula are teaming with wildlife and small fishing towns amongst a beautiful landscape...in other words, my form of Heaven on Earth.

Looking at the fishing/tourist town of Akaroa. Very quaint, and small town, despite the busy summer-tourist season going on. I wandered around town for the first half of the day before my wildlife boat tour. The views here are indescribable...I loved the grassy hills coming right down to the harbour all around. I also ate what is definately the best fish I have ever tasted for lunch.

Looking away from town out towards the harbour. I walked up to the lighthouse as well...and I know I am going to be returning to Akaroa at a later time in my life. I really loved the place. My wildlife cruise went well. We saw plenty of birds (but no penguins which is why I signed up for it in the first place!). We also saw A LOT of Hector's dolphins, the world's rarest and smallest dolphins. They are only 4' 6" max size and are really cool. None of my pics turned out too nice as they were too fast for my shutter! But I did get to see quite a good bit of them as they were not at all afraid of coming up to the boat. It was almost as if they knew we were getting a kick out of seeing them and were playing up for the show!

Good bye Christchurch! Christchurch and the start of the plains as seen from my plane. You can see the Pacific Ocean to the left back and the start of the Akaroa Peninsula to the center and right back, with Christchurch in the middle, and the farmers fields that make up the majority of the Canterbury Plains at the bottom. I love New Zealand.

Leaving Antarctica...

McMurdo Station once again. This is a sweet shot of the station from Observation Hill (well named eh?), which we climbed on our delay day at the station. McMurdo houses about 1000 people during the summer months. It is a very busy station and the food is NOTHING compared to that at Pole. Still, the mountains and ice shelf make for very nice scenery!

This is a picture of the ice dock (where the ice breaker comes into) and Hut Point. Hut Point has a memorial cross and Scott's Hut on it. Back in 1902, the hut was built to house Scott's expedition when their ship was caught in the ice and they were forced to winter over (that would SUCK back then). The hut was used in later years for other expeditions. It is really cool too because the wood on the hut looks like it is brand new. The extra cold weather has let it keep very well.

The memorial cross at Hutt Point. This was for a sailor that fell into a crack in the ice near the point and died. There were also some seals on the ice when I was here. They were pretty boring, however, as they just layed on the ice flicking the odd flipper every now and then. I guess I wouldn't be too active either if I were that awkward out of the water...

This is a picture of Observation Hill. People climb this to get some great views of McMurdo Sound, Ross Island, and the mountains accross the ice shelf. On our delay day, we climbed this, then hiked over to the Kiwi station: Scott Base. Scott was awesome! Very cozy inside with the usual friendly Kiwis all over. Their bar/game room was the best. They had a stuffed kiwi bird and maps from all over the world, plus darts and an old pool table. Very comfortable base those Kiwis have going on!

Here I am at the top of Ob Hill. The background didn't turn out too detailed, but it was beautiful up there.

This is a sweet shot of McMurdo Sound with Mt. Erebus in the background. McMurdo is right in the center (we are far from it and it is quite hard to make out, but trust me, in the center where the ice meets the rocks is that huge, 1000 person station. Ob Hill is the little one in the very front right). Mt. Erebus is a massive (12000+ feet) ACTIVE VOLCANO! Yea, that smoke coming out of the top is not a cloud folks! It and its neighbor, Mt. Terror (how sweet of a name is that for a mountain!) make up the bulk of Ross Island. This picture was taken from the larger airport on the ice shelf: Pegassus. It lies quite a distance (as you can see here) from the station and is the station used for C-17 flights. I got my last glimpses of the frozen continent from here, and with such a clear, sunny day, they were unbelievable!

South Pole: Day Twenty-something...

Ok, I messed the order up on these...but oh well. This is one of the crazy solar effects here at the South Pole. It is called a "false dawn." You cant see it in this picture, but the sun was really up in the sky when this was taken. I don't know if this is because of the ice crystals in the air, like the sun dog, but whatever causes it, the sun gets this reflection on the horizon directly below it, making it look like a second sun is rising directly underneath the normal one!

This is a shot taken from the air of the entire station. You might have to get out a magnifying glass...but you can make out ARO (where our instruments are) at the very bottom left (the little spot). The New Station is the biggest building (left-center) with the dome as the dark splotch next to it. "Summer camp" is that large stretch of buildings and whatnot that lie above the station in the picture. The ice runway runs down the center of the shot and to the right of that is the dark sector where the telescopes and IceCube (the nuetrino detector) are. Notice that the walk to ARO is really long (somewhere between a quarter and third of a mile). I'll get to that in a few.

This is another of the amazing and crazy things that the sun does at the South Pole. It is called a "sun dog," and it is a lovely spectacle that occurs because of the ice crystals in the air. As you can tell, the sun gets those halos around it and bright points form at various points throughout the halo....really really neat!

Speaking of that long walk to ARO, here's Neal and I just getting in: notice the frost on our beard hair. The moisture in our breath freezes to pretty much anything it touches...yes, it is that cold here.

And here is Dr. Azeem, Dr. McEwen (in the doorway), and myself, obviously very hard at work.

Distinguished Visitors at SP

Today, Jan 7th, South Pole Station had some special visitors. Two senators and several congressmen traveled to the pole to take a tour of the station. They were all on committees dedicated to the National Science Foundation, and were therefore very interested in the science and station here at the South Pole.

Yes, Senator John McCain was one of the two senators to visit, and I even got to talk with him! He knew of Embry-Riddle (from reputation as well as the campus in Prescott, AZ). He thanked Dr. Azeem and I personally for the research we were doing, and I must say that was pretty cool coming from a very possible candidate for US Presidency in 2008. I then thanked him for his work in the Senate, of which I am very much a fan.

This is from a totally different day; but notice the Canadian flags on the tails of these "twin otters:" small planes used for flights around both poles. These were from a Canadian company that specialized in flying to very cold, remote areas, and I thought it was just nice to see some Canadian presence (especially considering we don't have a flag down here!!!).

Me (in the black), my boss: Dr. Azeem (red), and our two science techs: Neal (in USA) and Bob (with blue hat). This was us just after the 2 kilometer race around that world that absolutely decimated our lungs. Neal and Bob will be "wintering over" staying the six months during winter in which no flights go in or come out of the continent. Wintering at South Pole Station is the one of the closest things on Earth you can get to space travel.

Some race participants; yes that is a dude on a snowboard being dragged behind a snow mobile....why didnt I think of that?!?!? On the sled ahead of that is our version of Santa Clause. The race around the world just has everyone running, driving, being pulled, walking, crawling or whatever else around the pole in a large 2 km loop. It is cold and the air is super thin...it is hard as hell to run it, but the record time was 9 min 12 sec...sick. My lungs tasted like blood after about a quarter of the first lap, and I'm just happy that I made it considering it was only a day and a half after exposure to the altitude!

This guy didnt seem too interested in running.

This is a nice shot of the station from the neutrino detection experiment called IceCube. You can see the new station, the old dome, the shacks and whatnot on the right, and our man-made snow pile as the only land feature other than flat, white snow.

These vehicles were used by the men in red to traverse from McMurdo to South Pole. This might not sound too impressive, but when you take into account the crevaces in the ice practically the entire way that can be large enough to swallow one of those Cat's into a 1000 foot deep gash in the ice. Then there is the fierce winds that can blow up to 150 mph, the extreme cold that can cause frost bite in less than 2 minutes, and the lonliness of being almost totally out of touch with the rest of the world while you travel in a massive tracked vehicle, which can easily get stuck or have moving parts freeze, accross a baren wasteland of ice and snow. It's impresive; and just one more thing...think about going to the bathroom....yea...these people are tough.

Here is a pic of the dome and one of the exposed tunnels that has been dug out from the accumulated snow. Note the size of the two guys up on the transition between the side tunnel and the main tunnel into the dome. Close to fourty feet of snow is piled up there, and it is being slowly cleared away.

This is one of the many frozen tunnels that runs between buildings underneath the surface of the snow...I just thought it was really cool and it reminded me a lot of Hoth from the Empire Strikes Back!

This is the hole being "drilled" for the IceCube project to study the existence of neutrinos, a practically indetectable, subatomic particle. They use hot water to melt the ice and snow ahead of the drill. They actually drill down like this through 2.6 kilometers of ice (like 1.5 miles!!!). This is the largest project currently at the pole. I'm pretty sure they are planning on drilling 60 holes, and it is amazing to see the project underway. They have massive, heated tanks for the water, a huge system of pipes that takes the water to clean it and heat it up, and even their own generators for power (since, when drilling, they use more than the rest of the station combined!). Sweet stuff.

This is the Atmospheric Research Observatory (ARO): the building I work in. It is a lovely quarter mile walk from the station that we make at least two round trips of each and every day!

I did not take this picture, but this is a lovely shot of what I am down here to study: the Aurora Australialis. If anyone wants to know about the auroras, just let me know because I know way too much about them to explain it all on here.

Here are Dr. Azeem and myself taking our "hero shots": pictures of us outside at the pole with our top layers of clothes off. Let it be known that when this picture was taken, it was a particularly cold and windy day and the temperature was a whopping -40 deg C (which happens to be -40 deg F as well). In other words, cold as the ninth layer of Hell.

The South Pole: Early Christmas Morning 2005

Here you go everybody, my first pics from the bottom of the world: the South Pole.

And believe it or not, these pictures were taken at 1:00 AM on Christmas Day... remember the 24 hour sunlight!

This is it. The South Pole. Yes, it is candy cane striped, and has a nice shiny ball on top. The flags in behind are from all of the countries that have Antarctic programs (no Canada though...I'll have to talk to somebody about that one, but I guess we do have the North Pole). In behind you can see the new station. It is still under construction, but most operations have been moved into it. That is also the building I am sleeping in.

Here I am at the South Pole, in most of my gear too. Its hard to believe it is 30 below and that I am kneeling on nearly 3 kilometers (about 1.8 miles) of solid ice.

I had to take the classic "reflection shot." That is me holding the camera and taking a shot of my own reflection in the ball on top of the pole.

This is the dome that used to be the primary station. It is scheduled for demolition and shipment to California after the new station is up. You can also see the tubes that are used to reinforce the system of tunnels through the ice around the station...very cool, and I don't mean just the temperature inside.

And don't worry, we have a Christmas tree here too.

Antarctica: McMurdo and trip to South Pole: days 1 and 2

My first steps on the continent. The C17 we rode in on is in behind me. It lands right on the Ross Ice Shelf (the surrounding whiteness). It was overcast which made the sky blend in almost perfectly with the snow making the horizon impossible to detect. The only things that broke the whiteness were some black mountains in the distance.

Yes, McMurdo station has a coffee house, and it is open for business.

McMurdo Station's sign. In the background notice Shackleton's Hut and the cross out on the point as well as the ice shelf all around.

Beautiful view looking out over the ice shelf from McMurdo. Black Mountain is on the right and White Mountain on the left. These are used to determine direction and predict storms at the station.

Back at the airfield (ice shelf) those are the C130's that we had to take the 3.5 hour flight from McMurdo to South Pole station in.

Windsock on the airfield. One word: BLEAK

Out the cockpit window of the C130. These are some mountains in the Trans-Antarctic Range. Most of the pictures out of the windows were so saturated by light that they just turned out solid white.

Close up looking down on a Trans-Antarctic. This wasn't zoomed in at all. We were flying very close to the peaks.

Antarctica: McMurdo Station: Day 1

Just got onto the continent today. It was a long flight all dressed up in the extreme cold weather gear, but of course, it was well worth it. We were allowed to look out the small windows of the C17 while we crossed over the ice boundry over the sea (where it turned from water to ice). It was stunningly beautiful and I hope that the pictures can even begin to justify it. We could also see the continent's black mountains, which are very very distinct against the snow and ice and sky, in the distance. The plane landed on a snow field that they call an airport. The sky was overcast and very gray making the ground, which is solid white in every direction, blend almost perfectly into it everywhere except for a few black mountains in the distance. The ride to McMurdo station from the air strip was also very interesting. To get from one point to another, vehicles have to follow lines of flags that are stuck in the ice. It is desolate and bleak and without the flags it would be practically impossible to navigate. The flags also serve as safe route markers since much of the travel is on ocean ice on the ice shelf, and being summer and all down here, the ice is melting leaving many crevaces and weak points. So like I said, very interesting and extremely exciting! The station is awesome. Since I will have several days here after New Years, I will talk mostly abuot it then.

I leave for the South Pole early tomorrow. I will write more from there as well as update all the pictures, and let me warn you, there are a lot!

Christchurch intersection. I love that building in the background. The architecture here is very unique. It is a great escape from the cookie-cutter styles of the States.

View of the Avon River that flows right through town. All the banks are lined with trees and grass like this. The entire run of it is very scenic and beautiful.

Fountain in the Botanical Gardens, one of the city's many parks. The whole city is so green from all of these parks. They are also very well used by the locals, who are very fitness and outdoors oriented.

Trolly going down a scenic avenue.

Cathedral in town center. There is a city center square all around this area that acts as the heart of Christchurch. There were street performers, a market, countless shops, statues, and a massive chess board that always was being used. Christchurch is a lovely town with very friendly locals.