The last leg

Before we left McMurdo Sound about a dozen of the passengers jumped into the ice cold water for a Polar Plunge. Not me. Most of them were young(ish) except one very admirable woman in her fifties. She did first have to ask the ship's doctor if it was OK for her to take the plunge.

On our way out of the Ross Sea we found ourselves completely surrounded by sea ice, which was an eerie view in the misty morning. Then it started to snow. The temperature rose to a balmy minus 9 degrees. The ice in the sea went from 'pancake ice' to bergy bits, to quite large pancakes and large ice floes, with occasionally a small group of penguins or seals on a piece of ice.


On Sunday 1 March we finally left the Ross Sea after our visit to the Borchgrevink hut at Cape Adare (see previous post). We now faced six whole days at sea before we reached Campbell Island. Although we went towards the Balleny Islands, there was too much mist and sea ice to get in for a landing or even a view of the Islands. The tour leader asked the captain whether he thought we could go in, and the captain said "NYET!"

So, on we went, through rough seas, and calm, with amazing rosy sunrises and sunsets, pods of whales, which was very very cool, and lots of birds: petrels, skua, fulmars, shearwaters, and albatross. The sea was never the same: if it was calm, birds would perch of the gently bobbing waves; if it was rough, the seas would splash over the bridge and withdraw with spectacular foaming;
or suddenly we would be surrounded again by heavy ice, or icebergs. When not watching waves or birds, we were entertained with really good documentaries or lectures about polar exploration or antarctic wildlife. I also delved into the library on board and read Admiral Byrd's autobiography about his wintering adventure, called Alone. An amazing book and a very frank telling of the loneliness and eventual near madness that Byrd battled during the dark winter months of 1934 on the ice by himself. He was living in a small and comfortable hut, but nevertheless had to fight against immense cold nights/days of sometimes minus 70 degrees. I love the cover of the book (the book I read had none). Byrd looks a bit like a caveman with a cudgel in his hand.

Finally, in the early evening of Friday 6 March we arrived at Campbell Island.
In the afternoon we had a lecture on recognising albatross, but this only confused me. After 4 or 5 I gave up and felt my head spin. However, I had no problems seeing that the dozen or so albatrosses that flew around the ship were royals, because they are so huge and we have a royal albatross colony near Dunedin, which I have visited often. Campbell Island has a huge colony of royal albatross and in the high season there may be thousands there. Unfortunately we were there in the off season and there were only a hundred or so birds. But we were able to get really up close and personal.


At the Dunedin colony you can only watch from behind the windows of the observation building, but here we found several nesting quite close to the boardwalk. I spent at least twenty minutes just sitting in the tussock, watching a pair of albatross change guards of their nest. One had been looking after the nest with a chick, the other came back from her foraging trip. She wobbled to the nest — albatross are graceful in the air, but very clumsy when they try to walk — and then the two birds engaged in the typical albatross greeting and loving ceremony, of preening each other, clicking their beaks together etc. Finally the one who had been sitting on the nest (for some reason I decided that was the father) stepped away and let the other take over. He moved away, was about to depart, but then came back for another quick kiss, walked in the other direction and finally flew away, while the mother happily settled down to sit on the nest and guard the nest. Strangely enough, I did not see her feeding the chick, which is what one would expect after a trip away.

The New Zealand Department of Conservation has held a huge and very successful pest eradication program (look at this Campbell Island website for information). The timber from the crates of poison have been used to complete the boardwalk, so that tourists can now walk right to the top and have enjoy the splendid views.




After our visit to Campbell Island it was another two days motoring to get us to Bluff and from there by bus to Invercargill, where most of us immediately rushed to do two things: first have a decent cup of espresso to compensate for the month of instant coffee and secondly to go shopping after a month's deprivation. Invercargill is a remarkably great place for shopping. Although it is, in the eyes of many New Zealanders, a bit of a backwater and a small town, it has a hinterland of rich farmers. By the way, the official Invercargill website is not to be missed. Look here and enjoy the welcoming words from the mayor Tim Shadbolt, one of New Zealand's most colourful personalities. In the New Zealand movie The World's Fastest Indian (about a motorbike speed record, not about American indigenous people) Shadbolt played himself as mayor of Invercargill.

After our shopping spree, we had a pleasant drive back to Dunedin. For once I was the person living closest to the point of departure, while everyone else had to travel across the world to get to Invercargill and back home. It has been really nice, writing this story about the trip. It helped to keep it all alive. I don't think I would ever want to spend so many days in a fairly small boat travelling that far to have another look at Antarctica. But I wouldn't mind seeing the sub-antarctic islands again. They were truly amazing and it would be exciting to see them earlier in the season when the megaherbs are in bloom and the wildlife is even more abundant.

Although my Antarctica story is finished, I hope you keep reading my blog. More soon.

The Historic Huts

Last night (Saturday 6 June) I went to a charity film screening of 90 Degrees South, a 1933 remaking and reconfiguration of Herbert Ponting's film footage of Scott's Terra Nova expedition to Antarctica. The proceeds of the evening, held at Otago Museum, went to the Antarctic Heritage Trust's international conservation project to restore and maintain the historic expedition huts of the Ross Sea area. Nigel Watson, the executive director of the Trust introduced the evening and showed us slides of the restoration process so far, of the before and after of the two Scott expedition huts, the Discovery hut at Hut Point, and the Terra Nova hut at Cape Evans, as well as the Shackleton hut at Cape Royds of the Nimrod expedition. Having just seen most of the huts in their mostly restored condition it was really interesting to see what it was like before. The Trust has a magnificent website outlining their work, the restoration and conservation project with photos of all the huts, both historical and current. The work consisted not only of repairing the structure of the huts, but also ensuring the future conservation by removing tons of snow, installing snow break equipment, and drying out the huts. This included lifting the linoleum (very carefully rolling it onto a giant roll) and lifting every floorboard. After draining and drying the underfloor area every board (carefully labelled) was put back where it belonged. They also lifted every object, cleaned and restored it before putting it back exactly where it had been found. Having just been there, I can vouch for the success of the operation. It was very dry and clean and an amazing living museum.

Because there are so many books and websites with photos of the historic huts (see here for example, Freezeframe, the site of the Scott Polar Research Institute) I don't really want to bore my blog readers with mine. On the other hand, I do want to tell you "I was there!". So here are some photos of the three huts we saw. We visited them in reverse historical order: first Scott's Cape Evans hut (1920-1913), then Shackleton's Cape Royd's hut (1907-1909) and finally the hut of the British Southern Cross Expedition 1898-1900), led by Carsten Borchgrevink from Norway. We did not get to see the hut of Scott's first expedition on the Discovery (1901-1904), which stands at Hut Point and could not be reached because the sea was frozen. Here are the pictures in historical order. First Borchgrevink's wonderful lockwood Norwegian hut at Cape Adare put up in 1899, which still stands strong (although it was restored, mainly by putting on a new roof). This is the smallest hut. Borchgrevink's group was the very first to winter over in Antarctica.It must have been pretty awful! Not only the cold and the wind, but also the stench and noise of the hundreds of thousands of adelie penguins. When we were there there were only a few hundred, but it was clear to see where the penguins would normally be: on the miles and miles of brown guana. What a smell!

The expedition consisted almost totally of Norwegians, but was funded by an Englishman and is therefore known as a British expedition.
Note remnants of the English flag. Also the name of the expedition and of the sponsor as well as the expedition leader on the case behind the table.

To get to Shackleton's hut we had to walk about 40 minutes across the scoria along the coast of Ross Island. This was informative, because Shackleton also had trouble finding a good landing place and after the initial off-loading of supplies the Nimrod moved away and could only get to a bay further along. I could imagine the ponies having to struggle on those stones, although it may have been covered in snow then. This is taken from the top of the final descent into the little valley where the hut stands, among adelie colonies. Click to enlarge the picture for a better view. The other picture shows the famous 'Mrs Sam's Stove', which burned anthracite coal and could operate 24 hours a day. It radiated enough heat to keep the temperature of the hut to a steady 16 to 21 degrees C. Of course they had to offload and transport tons of coal for the purpose.


Finally, Scott's Cape Evans hut. As you can see, the hut was now snow free, after the removal of tons and tons of snow by the Antarctic Heritage Trust's work.If you click on the picture to enlarge, you can just make out the snow barriers. Large triangles on poles on the left, one just behind the person in orange (that's actually my cabin mate). Don't ask me how this snow barrier system works. They are 'vortex generators' and there are five of them. If you are particularly interested I'm sure the Heritage Trust site will tell you more, or you can look on Wikipedia.

Of course I took some photos of the famous table in Scott's hut. The first is taken from the entrance, the same direction as Ponting's famous birthday photo, which is the fourth in the series this links takes you to. At the very back of my first picture you can see the doorway into Herbert Ponting's darkroom. The second picture is taken from that position, looking back at the entrance. On the left at the back is the kitchen. That part was (famously) shielded off from the backroom, to separate men from officers.

Notice in particular the brand names on boxes, for example Fry's Cocoa. This cocoa was provided by Cadbury's Chocolates in Dunedin who merged with Fry. Scott was a pioneer in the development of sponsorship deals with food manufacturers of the day. The shelves in the hut are still filled with packaged food, all provided free to the expedition in exchange for advertising rights and publicity photographs, showing the growing power of food brands in the Edwardian era (according to a BBC 4 program on the Edwardian larder). In fact, this brand promotion is still going on. Cadbury had provided packets of Jaffa's for last night's film showing. (Jaffa's are orange coated chocolte balls and a traditional film viewing snack in New Zealand.) In the interval they also served dairy products from Anchor, who provided butter for Scott. And there was Typhoo tea, extra strength. This special blend was apparently originally a waste product, but became a best-seller because it was drunk by Scott's men at Cape Evans, a freebie from Typhoo. Apparently Tesco and Typhoo have issued this blend anew, in commemorative boxes with Scott's name on it. Part of the proceeds of the sale of this tea will go to the Antarctic Heritage Trust.

When Herbert Ponting came home from the Scott expedition he was horrified to discover that Scott had sold all the rights to his photos to help pay for the expedition. Later Ponting bought back the rights to the film footage and created the film we saw last night. The original silent footage had been augmented with an introduction by Captain Evans and Ponting himself. The film images were accompanied by music and Ponting's very amusing and informative commentary. To make a full story, a number of stills from his photo collection were edited in. I found the film extremely moving and it beautifully completed for me the experience of my own expedition to Antarctica. First I had read some of the books, such as Apsley Cherry-Gerrard's amazing book The Worst Journey in the World and a book about the Nimrod expedition. Then actually being there put it all into perspective. For example how, after depot laying expeditions, they sometimes found it difficult to find the way back to the hut in a blizzard and might get onto Tent Island or Inaccessible Island instead. I took a picture of these islands from the beach at the Terra Nova hut. This was now a beach with water between it and the islands, but during the depot laying journeys this was all frozen and indistinguishable from land.


Seeing Ponting's film last night gave me excited pangs of recognition. So very little has changed in the hundred years since the expedition and I kept thinking: yes, that's how it looks, yes, I've seen that, stood there. There are very few historic sites in the world where so little has changed. Normally a monument ends up swamped in other buildings, roads, traffic, people and rarely do you get the chance to stand there, soak in the moment in silence and imagine the past. Really wonderful.