This Lord Tennyson quote is written on the cross that was set in memoriam Scott’s Party that perished on their way back from the South Pole. Today, I would make the same trip, but orders pf magnitude faster and much safer…
The day started out veeeeeeeery early. We had to report to the CDC at 5:30 in the morning. First, you grab your bags and repack the things: There are a few things that you have to wear already on the flight! The rest is than packed into a carry-on bag and as many checked-in bags as you want (there is a weight limit, however!). From there, we walked over to the passenger terminal, were you go through pretty much the same security procedure as in civilian flights. After that I had an hour before reporting back to the terminal, so I went for breakfast. Now, the clothes you wear are pretty hot, so I ended up running around in my fleece underwear. Very sexy, let me tell you! 😉
After breakfast, people started going back to the terminal, where another security video was shown (and there are a few more to go, I am
pretty sure). After that we normally would have been taken to the plane, but not today! Since NZ is celebrating the 50th birthday of their Scott Base (just around the corner of McMurdo Station), our flight had so special guests on board for the celebration: Besides some reporters and journalists, the NZ prime minister Helen Clarke and Sir Edmund Hillary are flying with us today! Cool, eh? Just as a reminder: Sir Edmund and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay were the first to reach the Mount Everest summit! He was part of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition
Finally, we set out to the runway. The first leg to McMurdo will be flown in a C-17, a cargo plane. Man, those babies are huge, the inside looks like a big hall. I guess you could two basketball courts in here or so…. There are no windows, but I am sitting next to one of the exits, it has a small look out. The inside is pretty loud, more than on a commercial plane, but otherwise (temperature, pressure) it is just the same. You can get an idea of the plane interior on my pix!
The flight took somewhere around 5h, then we landed on the Ross Ice Shelf, Pegasus air field. Quickly, we were ushered into a transport bus called Ivan. Starring unbelievingly at the landscape around me – a large, white plane encircled by the several mountains – we were driven to McMurdo station, where we got another security video to watch. That concluded more or less the day. We had to re-check our stuff for the flight to the Pole next day, but that didn’t take long…
