Let me first assure you that to receive a generous per diem while being delayed for three days (so far) in Christchurch is ZERO hardship. We all have nice hotel rooms to ourselves and total freedom to roam the city and its environs. It's been fun to get to know this area a bit more and have essentially a paid vacation in this corner of New Zealand. I had some time to explore the whole Antarctic-themed area around where the USAP offices are.
One of Christchurch's biggest tourist draws is the Antarctic Centre, where they offer Hagglund rides...
...and displays to convey the realities of Antarctic exploration and life. I'm starting to feel less disoriented than I used to be by looking at a map with the South Pole at its center. This one shows where I'll soon be in the middle, with the second glowing light on the coast above the Pole marking McMurdo Station, and then north of that, Christchurch lit up on the south island of New Zealand. You can also see, on the bottom right of the map, "the peninsula": the arm of Antarctica that stretches toward South America. (That is where the third U.S. Antarctic base, Palmer, is situated, and is where 99% of Antarctic tourism is focused, as that generally involves cruise ships leaving from the far south of South America to the relatively mild and wildlife-rich climes of the peninsula.)
The full-time staff at the USAP CDC (this gig might involve nearly as many acronyms as Peace Corps did; in this case, I'm talking about the United States Antarctic Program's Clothing Distribution Center) and at the adjacent Travel Center were generous with their space and wifi and have this lovely display showing all the ECW (extreme cold weather) gear available to program participants.
Once I'm wearing it all I'm likely to look something like this (and I promise I will send a picture of me fully clad once I'm finally somewhere cold enough to warrant the get-up):
In the meantime, the weather in Christchurch has been pretty glorious. Taking advantage of yet another mostly sunny day, five of us took a cab north of the city to the beautiful setting of Seafield Park...
...and started our bonding process. From L to R, this is J (who will be our baker at Pole), S (a physics PhD headed to McMurdo to work on a longterm balloon project), I (a production chef at Pole), J (another production chef at Pole) and me. Though we will say goodbye to S in McMurdo, the rest of us (plus six kitchen staff not pictured here) will be working together very closely every day once we get to Pole, and it has been so much fun to start to get to know them (and very reassuring that I like them all a lot!).
Our reason for going to Seafield was the adjacent "Adrenaline Forest," where we spent an afternoon on a crazy-fun ropes course in the trees. Lots of Indiana Jones-type stuff, including some amazing zip lines.
Seafield also has a wildlife sanctuary, with some of the happiest chickens I've ever seen, and these insanely adorable pigs.
The reason for our delay these past few days has been a mechanical issue with the C-17 we'll take to McMurdo. This has lead to having notes slipped under our hotel room doors, sometimes multiple times/day, updating us on the status of our flight, to the point that I feel like I'm some sort of old school secret agent receiving urgent correspondence. As I type this, the part they needed has arrived and they are working on making the repairs needed for us to finally head to The Ice tomorrow. We'll see! Another update soon, regardless!
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