In New Zealand

I am now in New Zealand. This post is a little delayed as I've been busy with enjoying New Zealand and getting some other work done. I got into Christchurch late Tuesday night (early Tuesday morning US time) after a relatively long last day of the field season.

I am sure that my last day of the field season on previous trips have also been a whirlwind of activity. In fact, given that on one trip we had a Twin Otter flight the day before, and on another I arrived into McMurdo, from a field camp, a day after my originally scheduled flight, this year was probably more quiet than most. However, it was still a busy day of running around town and taking care of last minute details and saying good bye to the colleagues and friends from the field season. In truth, some of the craziness of my last day was self inflicted by me not getting a few things done a week or two earlier.

I woke up in the morning to a notification that the southbound C-17 flight from Christchurch was on a two-hour delay. With all of the mechanical, runway, and other issues with the C-17 flights, this was last C-17 flight until late January, and it was over a week later than was anticipated. The runway at Phoenix Airfield is a compressed snow runway for wheeled aircraft. During December and most of January, the runway is considered unusable by the C-17 because the snow is too soft for the wheeled landings of the C-17 with the sun highest in the sky during the peak of the summer. The two-hour delay allowed me to get a little more sleep, and a little more time to get things done.

The C-17 flight from Christchurch to McMurdo Station is roughly 5 hours. With a two-hour delay on departure, to 11:00 AM, that meant an arrival at approximately 4:00 PM. The passengers for the flight are typically transported to Phoenix Airfield prior to the flight arriving. This means that we had a 2:30 PM transport time from McMurdo, on the large Kress people mover, and it was over an hour drive on the Kress to Phoenix.

Since this was the last of the C-17 flights, it was loaded with cargo. The turn around time on the C-17 flight can generally be between an hour and a half to two hours. On Tuesday it was over three hours. It didn't help that with the soft snow at Phoenix, several of the transport and cargo vehicles were having difficulties getting stuck. It was a beautiful sunny day at Phoenix Airfield so much of the time was spent watching the activities on the snow apron and I spent a little time in the passenger terminal at Phoenix.

The northbound C-17 flight finally departed from Phoenix Airfield at 7:00 PM. The cargo plane had a moderate number of passengers, but no need for the additional seats in the cargo area. Additionally, there was a small amount of cargo on the northbound flight. The result is that it was a very spread out and comfortable flight. This was a big improvement from my past northbound flights that were on cramped shoulder-to-shoulder and knee-to-knee C-130 flights. The flight took 5-1/2 hours as there were some headwinds and a little turbulence as we neared New Zealand. We landed at 12:30 AM and then we had to go through customs and immigration, similar to other international flights into New Zealand.

After leaving the airport, it is a short walk to the USAP Clothing Distribution Center (CDC) where we drop off the extreme cold weather gear that we were issued prior to the field season. The CDC is also where we get our hotel reservations and ticketed flights back to the US. Because delays are so common with the flights from Antarctica, the flights are typically not booked until the northbound flight is airborne. Next, it was waiting to get a shuttle to the hotel. Add all of this up and I didn't check into the hotel until 2:30AM. I was very hungry and I was able to fortunately find a Turkish restaurant open until 3AM for a late dinner. I didn't make it to bed until 3:30 AM. To no surprise, this is part of the reason for the delay this post being written.
I have chosen to spend four nights in New Zealand on my way back to Colorado. I have always felt that two nights were more or less mandatory to give yourself a chance to adapt back to the normal world. I have also added two days of vacation. My flight back to the US starts Saturday afternoon, and if all goes well, I will be arriving back in Colorado Saturday afternoon (gaining a day with the dateline).

I still plan to write about the rebuild of McMurdo Station that will be done over the next ~8-10 years. However, I might wait a few more days until I share the details of that large project. Lastly, in a few weeks, I will also be sending out a link to the photo album from this year's trip. Other than that, this year's journey to Antarctica is over. Thanks for following along!