After many failed attempts to use the slow internet in Antarctica to post our first blog from the field, I gave up….. and asked for help. Abby Mills, a grad student in our lab, who is back in Oxford and DOES have good access to the internet has agreed to post our blog posts for us. So sorry for the delay, but hopefully we’ll start doing regular blogs again now.
So we boarded a C-130 Hercules to McMurdo Station on Thursday December 19th – sometimes the planes are forced to “boomerang” which means after flying for 5 hrs, the weather conditions are too extreme for landing in Antarctica on the sea ice runway and we need to turn around and fly back to Christchurch. Spoiler alert – we made it on our first attempt! You can see from the photos that it was a PACKED flight – we were literally sardines cozied in together in all our ECW gear and lots of other cargo.
After 8 hours flight time, we successfully touched down in McMurdo on Phoenix Runway. You can see Parnell setting foot on Antarctica “soil” (sea ice) for the first time. “One small step for mankind, one giant step for Parnell…..” Shortly after deplaning, we were whisked away by “Ivan the Terrabus”, a very famous vehicle which shuttles Antarctica visitors to and from the base. Many interesting songs have been written about Ivan….The last photo is our plane heading back to Christchurch to get ready for the next transport.
Next blog ….. preparations in McMurdo and out to the field!
So we boarded a C-130 Hercules to McMurdo Station on Thursday December 19th – sometimes the planes are forced to “boomerang” which means after flying for 5 hrs, the weather conditions are too extreme for landing in Antarctica on the sea ice runway and we need to turn around and fly back to Christchurch. Spoiler alert – we made it on our first attempt! You can see from the photos that it was a PACKED flight – we were literally sardines cozied in together in all our ECW gear and lots of other cargo.
After 8 hours flight time, we successfully touched down in McMurdo on Phoenix Runway. You can see Parnell setting foot on Antarctica “soil” (sea ice) for the first time. “One small step for mankind, one giant step for Parnell…..” Shortly after deplaning, we were whisked away by “Ivan the Terrabus”, a very famous vehicle which shuttles Antarctica visitors to and from the base. Many interesting songs have been written about Ivan….The last photo is our plane heading back to Christchurch to get ready for the next transport.
Next blog ….. preparations in McMurdo and out to the field!