Air NZ Blog #2 - Ash

One of the great things about being here is the opportunity to visit the historic Antarctic explorer huts on guided field trips. I got to do this on our day off and I’d say it will be one of the highlights of this secondment. If Discovery Hut was a hotel it would probably rate as a two star. Scott’s Terra Nova hut at Cape Evans would be five star. What a contrast.

Scott had learnt many lessons from his first hut, Discovery, and implemented them into the build of Terra Nova. A kitset design from England, it was built in ten days, complete with double glazed windows, insulated walls made from shredded seaweed, two stoves and acetylene gas lamps for lighting. All made for a very cosy and welcoming feel to the hut. Terra Nova hut is the largest historical hut in Antarctica and served as a base for the officers, scientists and intrepid explorers who were part of the expedition. It was here that Scott launched his ill-fated race to the South Pole against Amundsen, only to find the Norwegian flag already there and subsequently dying only eighteen kilometres away from a food cache.

The hut’s amazing restoration is a huge tribute to the hard work of the Antarctic Heritage Trust. In 2008 the Trust started a comprehensive programme to save the hut. It’s now weatherproofed and structurally sound. 10,000 plus artefacts have all been restored, protected and cateloged in an effort to preserve what is there. The result is a time capsule of a hut from the golden age of the Antarctic explorers. Breath-taking.

More training occurred during the week.  I received training on driving the massive 4WD Toyota Land cruisers and the Hagglund all-terrain vehicle. Training for the Hagglund involved a thorough walk-through followed by a 40 minute assessment drive out to “my project”. An experienced Hagglund driver told me, “Driving a Hagglund is fun for the first fifteen minutes and then dead boring for the rest of the trip.” I’m yet to experience that. Sure, you crawl along at 25km/hr but it’s all about the journey.

My project is the ANDRILL, or Antarctic Drilling Project. This is a drilling rig which was last used in 2007 for investigating past Antarctic climate by taking ice, sediment and rock core samples from up to a depth of 1.2km. It was a combined project with scientists from Germany, Italy, the United States and New Zealand. The next planned drilling event isn’t until 2017/2018, so it needs to be broken down and shipped back to Christchurch in 40ft containers for an overhaul. Over the past few days we have shovelled eight months of snow drifts that buried our D6 Caterpillar bulldozer. The site is a 40 minute drive away and you need to go out well prepared. We need to dig out the bulldozer so that we can use it to dig out the containerised workshop which will hopefully have all the tooling we will need to break down the drill rig.

After digging out the bulldozer, we needed a Herman-Nelson portable hot air heating unit to melt all the snow out of the cabin and engine bay. While this was going on we also had a portable generator running to heat the engine block heater and battery blanket. Six long hours of preparation later, we turned over the engine and it purred into life on the first go, phew! Craig, the mechanic, then drove it out and gave it a bit of a whirl to get everything going again.

This week also culminated in the fire drill scenarios with the el grande, big daddy, grand finale of all scenarios: An acetylene tank explosion in the welding bay had left five people injured. During their rescue the breathing apparatus team were told that they had fallen on the stairs, broken their legs and would require rescuing as well. This scenario required everybody, including all three fire crews, to be involved in the rescue. Even the Americans from McMurdo were called in for assistance. There were fire trucks, ambulances and stretcher teams everywhere. Busy, busy, busy and in the end everybody passed with flying colours and the fire training instructors left here knowing Scott Base is now in safe hands.

On Wednesday and Thursday we received our field training. Comprehensive classroom sessions covered clothing selection, sleeping bag construction, weather observations, stove lighting and general survival in Antarctica before we left the warmth behind and travelled out to our overnight camp site. Our Scott two-person tents were built up and our double sleeping bags and insulated thermarest mattresses were rolled out for later on.

It was quite cold at -32°C and with the wind chill dropping the temperature to around -40°C, it made for testing conditions. I must say I was struggling a bit with my fingers getting very cold and my vision on my googles obstructed from the condensation from my breath freezing on them. Once I changed into my super mittens, my fingers came back to life and I was able to clear the ice from my goggles and was back in my happy place again. What a difference – this is what the training is all about. It exposes you to the conditions so that you can educate yourself on what works for you. I really enjoyed the field training and it gave me a great insight into the dangers particular to this extreme environment. I definitely won’t be straying from the flagged routes as there is the potential to fall into crevasses.

So now all the training is complete and the work can begin in earnest. The scientists and science technicians have started arriving and the base is a flurry of activity in preparation for the staging of their events. There is a buzz in the air and it isn’t just from the helicopters. It’s great to be part of it all!!!