Off Camping Tomorrow

Today we packed and weighed. The loads are all together and ready to fly, weather dependent. Today the flight from NZ was cancelled so no new people on base tonight. It has been low vis and windy, -23 deg C, -45deg C wind chill. The visibility reduces significantly here at times, often less than 20m. Light snow/ice blows around. Although there is very little “snow”, ice blows off the Antarctic Plateau. So we won’t be going anywhere if the forecasted weather arrives but we are to be ready for helo movements at 1050 either way. One of the uploaded photos shows you the amount of gear for an overnight stay for 3 of us so you can have some appreciation for the gear required.

Car camping they call it. The 3 of us are flying to Cape Evans (Scott’s hut) to gather some supplies. We rough it for the night and the next day we fly to Cape Royds where we meet the other 3 and set up camp for 20 days. After that time we are back to Cape Evans for 40 days.
I had my last shower tonight so will not be any cleaner than this till potentially February. A couple of tourist ships might come in (including a Russian Ice Breaker) so they might fly us back to the ship for a meal and shower.
There are 6 of us in the team. John Kermister is a conservator at the national Australian war museum. Lizzie Meek is a conservator with the Heritage Trust. Martin Wenzel is a restoration carpenter; he has been in Antarctica for all but 8 weeks of the last year. Jamie Ward is from Scotland and specializes in traditional carpentry. Lastly, Al Fastier is the project manager. He is an Antarctic veteran and very experienced. A great team. Lizzie is leaving prior to Xmas. Just after New Year’s, Scott’s grandson Falcon Scott will join us.
This will be it from me for a while. A CD with picts etc will be sent to NZ and should be online late November or early Decemeber.

Sun at its lowest point, directly south