Back in McMurdo

So, on Tuesday, we said goodbye to all the lovely people at the South Pole. Our plane arrived and departed on time, and delivered us to McMurdo with absolutely no trouble at all. We were scheduled to fly to Christchurch at 3am on Wednesday morning. It was cancelled. 3am Thursday morning. Cancelled. Our next go is 3am Friday morning (in twelve hours). At the moment, it's foggy as buggery at the airfield.. I'm still hoping that goes, because my ticket home is for 4pm on Friday. At the princely sum of... $460AUD. Via Brisbane. Seriously folks, that is a) the cheapest ticket by a long shot b) on a plane that is currently 3/4 empty, and c) ridiculously expensive. I am glad I am not paying. Although, if I was, I reckon I'd just stay in Christchurch another couple of weeks til the price dropped. Or drive to Auckland, which is actually probably cheaper. ... the same ticket, but in the opposite direction, is about $100. ??

Yesterday Nils was getting grumpy at being cooped up (well, he said he was, I couldn't tell), and dragged David and Dale to the outdoor safety lecture, while I wandered around inside taking photos of paintings of Antarctica.. this one is my favourite. It is of ice falls, painted by one David Rosenthal.

 
Nils then dragged all of us to do the Castle Rock loop (it didn't take too much convincing), since the actual Castle Rock was open for climbing. It took us 5.5 hours, and we (I) thought it was 7miles, Nils was convinced it was 9miles.. when we looked it up afterwards, it was closer to 12miles. Which I think is about 20km. Which makes me feel much more justified in being tired today. When we started, it wasn't too promising.. it was warm (honestly, I never thought I would consider zero degrees warm..) but it was warm, no wind, but foggy as buggery - we couldn't see the mountain we were aiming for..

The start! (after most of the uphill..). Dale is waving, David is in the middle, and Nils is on the right.

Nils photographing. I went and stood behind him, and as far as I could tell, he was photographing white. Except when we looked at the photos later, all of his photos were lovely, and none were white...

 We made it to the first apple - a bright red, round, warm shelter.. also the only privacy anywhere near McMurdo, so it is advisable to knock first.. thankfully this one was empty.. and made in Tasmania!! and it was still foggy.. but somehwere between the first and second apple, the fog cleared, and we could see Castle Rock, and blue blue sky. It was all very exciting. Also amazingly pretty.

A photograph of Dale taking a photograph of Dave and Nils taking a photograph of Castle Rock, just peeking out of the fog.

Also, apparently, I walk fast - I only note this down because I'm sure that anyone who's ever had to walk anywhere with me is dying of laughter at this point. I'm going to forward the opinon that short legs are easier in snow. Also. Dunlop Volleys.
Also, sundog behind Castle Rock!!!!!!! I'm sorry the photo isn't that great, but it's the best I've got.

The walk is pretty easy - there's a bugger of an uphill right at the start, but it's a dirt track, and the rest is a fairly gently uphill (through ankle deep snow, mind you), until you get to the base of Castle Rock. Then it is a fairly steep uphill over a deceptive layer of snow hiding lots of slippery ice. Getting up was reasonably slow. Getting down, we slid, mostly. Much easier.

Clown 1 and Clown 2, standing happily on the volcanic rock at the bottom of Castle Rock. The perspective is not great, but the curved path is the beginning of the downhill section of the track, and it is a looong way down.

The view! Only partway up, but so pretty! The mountain in the background on the left is Mt Erebus, the tallest mountain in Antarctica (I think), and the one on the right is Mt Terror. The view is (again, I think) North and slightly east, towards New Zealand.

Climbing up to the top was probably the easiest part of the walk - it was just rockhopping, and since it was rock, your shoes gripped properly. When we got up there, it was sunny, windless, and warm. We should have brought a picnic.. instead the boys had cookies and I had mini m&m's. Still good.

Dale climbing up, Mt Terror and half of Mt Erebus in the backround. There's an awful lot of white, and even though we're not very high (I think about 600m) up, it felt an awful lot higher.

Left to Right: David, Dale and Nils on the top of the rock. McMurdo base is almost directly behind Dale.

Getting down was reasonably easy, and then we got to the downhill ski slope, and employed the plastic trays that we'd borrowed from the kitchen. Oh so much fun! Dale was ever-graceful, he made it look so easy, and he never fell off.. (he got up a decent turn of speed, too), I have no idea how Nils managed to fit all 7feet of him onto one 50cm dining tray, but he did.. and David was definitely the fastest, in a fairly kamikaze fashion. He definitely had the most entertaining wipeouts. I was slow, and it took me a long while to figure out how to steer the thing (you don't really want to end up too far off the path.. apparently it's crevasse country).. sitting on it was OK, and gave my stomach muscles a good workout, but kneeling was the go. Much easier to steer, and all kinds of fast. I have not had so much fun, or laughed so hard in ages.

At the bottom of the hill. Triumphant dining-room-tray-boarders. The round green thing in the background is the last apple shelter - green because it belongs to the New Zealand base around the corner. The Kiwi ski hill is just off to the right. From here, it's about 5km back to base, and about half of that is on snow.

The walk back was gorgeous:

If a little long for some..

Nils wandered off to take some photos, and Dale gave up, sat down with a whumpf, and started eating his cookies. I nearly died laughing.

We made it back to McMurdo at 9.15pm, to discover that burger night (which we'd been dreaming about since about 7pm), finished at 9... So we contented ourselves with hot showers, cereal, toast, and icecream (with hot chocolate fudge). Til David found some soup. Which is exACTly what I felt like.. chicken and ham, and, apparently... lots of cheese. I couldn't finish mine, but apparently it suits American taste buds (according to Dale)...  then I slept for a good twelve hours, and here we are.

I do believe it's dinner time, and the thought of hot chocolate fudge is remarkably appealing.
I will add that I have just gotten a bunch of AWESOME photos from Nils and Dale, mostly to do with the downhill section, and I will put them up after dinner sometime. Possibly tomorrow. :)