Sunday, December 02, 2007

Up up and away!!!

In spite of the recent invasions of outsiders it only felt like winter had truly come to an end at Halley when the first member of the winter team, field assistant Sune, set off for pastures new at the end of November.

I was overjoyed when I was asked to go with him, as co-pilot for the return flight. Not only did it mean I would be flying in a ski plane, exciting enough in itself, but the journey included visits to other Antarctic stations and, best of all, my first views of mountains and rocks and generally large amounts of colours other than white in a long long while.

Here's a fleeting glimpse, soon to be updated with a bit more explanation and some more pretty pics (sorry about the shocking lack of posting of late, the 12 hour shifts of summer eat into time for doing things other than work!)

First stop Neumayer, Halley's neighbouring German research station. The whole base is underground. Below you can see the very kind base commander giving me a guided tour, more photos to follow.


Below, our first landing in the mountains. First you trail the skis to check for crevasses and take off again. Then you land exactly on the tracks. Looking back, the tracks come from nowhere and then disappear again. Landing here gave me one of the most wonderful feelings of true isolation I've ever experienced.


Ok, so I got a bit excited about the mountains...

We landed here and slept overnight in the plane. Above you can see a depot of food and fuel to resupply Sune and the geologist he'll be guiding early in the new year.


Wow.


South African Sanae Station from the air. We could see you waving but I' m not sure whether you could see us waving back!

Many thanks to staff at Neumayer and Troll stations for your wonderful hospitality.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You made us get out the map to try to find out the name of the mountains you were so excited about.

Don't forget our sun shadow reading on solstice- or there about.

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