Archive for category: Antarctic Blog

This has been a busy second week, with a lot of the work focussed around the TAE/IGY Hut. However, the highlight for me this week was attending Antarctica New Zealand’s Antarctic Field Training (AFT). This is a course which all event members participate in and is designed to equip people with the basic skills required for overnight camping in the Antarctic.

Antarctic Heritage Trust

Conservation Ambassador Mike Gillies in front of Mount Erebus

We began by setting off under the leadership of Chris, our resident West Coast ANTNZ field trainer, in a Hagglund along the Ross Ice Shelf. After about half an hour of putting along we reached the AFT camping site. There were seven other participants on the course, all from a range of backgrounds and nationalities: scientists studying seals, a member of the Antarctic Society, and a new ANTNZ staff member.

Mike Gillies

Field training camp

Our first task was to erect the Scott Polar tents; a tent design which hasn’t changed a whole lot in a hundred years. The next task was building a camp kitchen, which would also allow the group to get out of the wind and weather. We decided upon the ‘spa pool’ design. In other words, dig a round pit with a bench seat big enough to sit a dozen people, and then cut blocks of snow to build a wall surrounding the pit to keep the wind away. The group ‘dug into it’ and after an hour we had our home-away-from-home!

Mike Gillies

Having a well deserved rest after building the camp kitchen

Dinner was cooked on Primus stoves; all manner of dehydrated backcountry packet meals were on offer – Sweet and Sour Lamb, Beef Curry, Chicken Tikka Masala – yum, yum! The cloud cleared during dinner and provided a great opportunity for taking photos of Mt Erebus and the surrounding landscape.

Mike Gillies

Camping out in front of Mount Erebus

Then it was time for bed. Now for the million dollar question…? Was I warm enough while camping at -15C on the ice. Yep, absolutely. ANTNZ has a sleeping bag arrangement which is second to none, and if anything, I was too hot and wouldn’t have minded if the temperature dropped a little more during the night!

Mike Gillies

Time out in the camp kitchen

The next day it was up for a quick cuppa and porridge. After breakfast we packed up camp and headed back to Scott Base. What a great experience.

For me the whole experience of travelling to Antarctica felt more like travelling to another planet. Luckily I had Lizzie, Nicola and Martin – the seasoned and awesome AHT conservation crew I’ll be working with over the next six weeks – to shepherd me through this foreign process.

We began at the United States Antarctica Programme (USAP) departure lounge, a whole separate terminal at Christchurch International Airport, where our bags were weighed and checked, followed by a quick video from the head of the USAP. We then hopped on a very old American school bus. We were shuttled across the road, and directed to board the US Airforce’s C-17; this in itself was an amazing experience.

It was totally different to boarding a regular international commercial flight. Think very loud, lunch in paper bags, basic, and military green. The flight took about five hours. When we were approaching McMurdo there was a muffled announcement over the planes intercom, and then a mad flurry of passenger activity. All of the passengers were throwing on their ECW (extreme cold weather) gear. Me as a newbie followed suit, sitting in the C-17 sweating, but prepared and ready to face whatever Antarctica had to throw at me when the plane landed.

Maybe I was ready for the weather, but what I wasn’t prepared for was the Antarctic’s onslaught on my senses. Upon landing I walked down the gangway, and then – smack! I was instantly overwhelmed… that first breath of Antarctic air is unlike anything imaginable… extremely cold and dry, but the most pure air ever. Then the overwhelming visuals… vast ice fields as far as the eye can see; mountains which seem so close you could touch them but are miles away; Mt Erebus puffing away in the background; and the whole time these behemoth red American dinosaurs (think ski field shuttles on steroids) are carting people and gear around, to and from the airfield to McMurdo. Where on earth am I…?

Written by Conservation Ambassador Mike Gillies