We had a day and a half in Christchurch. It was lovely to see Christchurch again, it was interesting to see it at a different season than I've seen before, and it was exciting to know I was heading south at last. It was also great to visit my friend Roger who lives there (hi Rog!).
We met at 2:45am for the flight down. Another safety video, more speeches, more shuffling along in lines with our official two orange bags with our official Extreme Cold Weather gear. There's a specific set of clothes we have to wear on the plane, so everybody looks alike. The plane itself is big and empty, no fancy furnishings. Just aluminum-and-nylon benches and nylon webbing to lean on. We sit knee-to-knee for an hour on the runway while the flight crew works on the engines, then another 5+ in the air. When we land the vans aren't there yet so my first 20 minutes in Antarctica consist of standing in the plane looking at a tiny corner of white out the open door. Then we hustle across the flat crunchy sea ice with a quick view of mountains and low sun, into the van and windows are iced over so it's a very vague view on the ride into McMurdo.
MacTown is a grubby settlement of government-issue warehouses, workshops and dorms that cover the full color scale from tan to drab, but outside of town is well, damn... it's not like any place else. This time of year (late winter) the sea ice is solid enough to land airplanes on, and McMurdo Sound stretches out to the Royal Society range with Mt Discovery dominating. The seasons are changing but the sun's low sidle is still more below the horizon than above. We get hours and hours of sunrise and sunset. The mountains catch colors I didn't know exist. Sometimes there's a low band of fog, sometimes the moon is out.