Arthur's Pass (NZ) by rail

For a day of R&R in New Zealand, took the train up to Arthur's Pass, in the Southern Alps, and did a little bit of sightseeing and hiking.





This is a Kea, the world's only alpine parrot. I wasn't able to get a good shot of its bright red under-wing plumage because there were multiple parrots ganging up on me and trying to steal my lunch.

As an aside, I had a beer and a pork pie snack in the late afternoon in an Arthur's Pass restaurant/cafe called the Wobbly Kea. The music playing in that place definitely transported me to a time and place far from the South Island. I sat down to Johnny Cash's "A Boy Named Sue" which smoothly segued into "Rhinestone Cowboy" then "Coward of the County" and finally "Jolene" before I moved to an outside table. Don't get me wrong, "Jolene" is a great song and I do respect The Man in Black, but somehow it was all just too far off for a alpine cafe in New Zealand. When I went back in to drop off my dishes, the stereo was off.

Christchurch in January

While I was on the ice there was another moderate-sized aftershock on the 23rd of December and there was additional damage in the Christchurch area and the coastal area there as well. I did get to experience a 5.2 magnitude aftershock while I was in town. Woke me up in the early morning hours.

Construction and destruction ongoing...

A city of containers. I think containers are one of the great, little-heralded, inventions of the 20th century and if you wanted to ever be extremely bored, I could talk about them for hours. Or just check out Wikipedia on the intermodal container, and then follow some links from there...

Later in January, Christchurch will host the World Busker Festival, but there were a good number of street performers already in the earthquake-shattered city. This Scottish gentleman was juggling knives.

This gal was a (slightly-) moving angel sculpture.

And a simple duck was amazingly fascinating to someone who had been on the ice for weeks...

Out of Antarctica

Well, I've been back in the States for well over a week, need to finish up my Antarctica blog postings a touch off of real-time. I'm going to blame the SOPA protests for the latest of these entries.

To fly away, we first caught a Herc from the South Pole up to McMurdo. The flight was a day late due to mechanical problems with another Herc the day before. In this shot we're just landed in McMurdo, and the plane is being onloaded. The ski-do will take away the pee jar from the plane.

Hours later, our next ride comes into town. A C-17 air force transport bringing people and gear into McMurdo, and will take us north to New Zealand by morning.

Good-sized crowd of folks waiting for the plane out. Including some people who had been expelled from the continent for bad behavior. Long story...

Cargo on our flight included this prop blade assembly for a Herc. There wasn't an obvious problem with it... And in the foreground some biological and water samples marked "do not freeze" and "keep refrigerated." They were...

Partway through the five hour, 35 degree F, airplane flight. Folks hiding and trying to sleep in their parkas. But green, warm, damp New Zealand awaits!

The journey home

Am in Christchurch right now, next stop Sydney, Australia, followed by Honolulu, Hawaii. More from there...

So, the Herc windscreen appears to have been fatigue damage rather than a bird strike. Did some touring around New Zealand, more on that too...

And I know I owe some A's for the Q's...

South Pole Departure

Well, our first flight attempt out of here was yesterday. The plane took off from McMurdo heading for Pole, turned around and landed. They had a cracked windshield, possibly caused by a bird strike on takeoff. Penguins don't fly, so that was probably a skua.

This morning the flight was canceled due to bad weather in McMurdo. But there's a new scheduled flight for dinner time tonight that might work!

Once I'm back to the land of reliable internet, will post pictures from the last few days. And answer the last batch of questions I got. Look for that soon!

I did want to link two excellent articles from the New York Times for the Amundsen 100th anniversary of the achievement of the Pole which also highlight the modern Antarctica. Article and editorial.

January 1, 2012 at the South Pole

Every year on New Years there is the official "moving of the Pole." The ice sheet that the South Pole Station sits on moves about an inch per day, so at the end of the year it's about 10m (30ft) different. On New Years the official Pole marker is unveiled. Here the station manager (left, Bill) and NSF representative (right, Vladimir) are about to remove the red cloth...
There it is. The nicely machined brass Pole marker that will remain up for a year, and then go into the cabinet of old Pole markers in station.
Most of the folks on station showed up for the (very brief) ceremony. Basically thirty seconds of speech each by three people. Then photo ops...
Here's last year's Pole marker.
And a close up of this year's marker, making clear the 100th anniversary connection with the iconic image 100 years ago.

Work images from the last few days

Christian doing some antenna testing in the IceCube Lab. That's a bird-cage looking biconical antenna for our downhole vertical polarization measurements.

WiFi propagation testing out in the middle of what will be the ARA37 array. Beautiful solar effects here many days.

Drill camp coming down. Everything needs to be stored for next year, shipped back to the States, or disposed of. We made quite a mess in just a few weeks...

Testing of the downhole receiver strings...

...all of whose parts are sitting out on the IceCube Lab porch to cool off.

Coming up on New Years

We have a few more instrument strings to deploy and more cargo to ship back to the States. Over the New Years weekend there's the official move of the Pole (the ice sheet is moving about an inch per day) and music & dancing.

Instrument deployment

We're in a dash against time (the ARA crew leaving Pole on the 3rd of January) to install all of the instrumentation in the ice. Should be doable, but it'll be a busy few days. More from me when we finish...

Windy weekend leads to drifting

Flagstaffs

US Antarctic Program flag flapping in the breeze.

All points are North from here.

Antarctic map flagstaff head.

Christma Dinner

Appetizers served in the hallway before the meal, excellent scallops and smoked trout, along with baked brie. Yum!
Festive Christmas cheer with tablecloths, a DVD of a (gas) fireplace, and everyone dressed up as well as they could. Clean Carhartts...


Beef Wellington, Lobster Tail, potatoes, and rolls. Good desserts too.

Images of drilling

Drill running, this is the "backside" of the drill, snow melter at right, heaters in middle, and power unit and hot water tank (former dairy tank...) at left.

Advanced level winding hardware, a.k.a. chief driller Dennis Duling.

Snapshot of atmospheric phenomena during drilling. Just had a pocket camera with me and could see anything on its LCD display.

A peek over the wind break.

Kara the driller. "Why are driller helmets so small?"

Race around the world

For Christmas each year there is a scheduled race, it goes all the way around the world in about 2 miles. You can run it, walk it, ski it, or take a vehicle around, potentially with a float, and costumes are always apropos. The IceCube and ARA group took the IceCube chariot (looks like a Roman chariot) around for the race. It was built by IceCubers a couple of years ago and is darned impressive!

The pirate flag was a nice touch... The large orange flag is a marker flag from IceCube, marks the locations of the 86 IceCube holes, and is sort of a symbol for the project.

Wrapping up the drilling

Today is Friday at the Pole, and we have a two day weekend for Christmas! Saturday features the legendary Race Around the World and the big Christmas dinner. Sunday is quiet & rest for Christmas Day proper.

We're aiming to finish up the last ARA1 drilling late this evening. It's been a busy day here...

Best early comment on proliferation (Not Antarctica-related)

The newspapers have published numerous diagrams, not very helpful to the average man, of protons and neutrons doing their stuff, and there has been much reiteration of the useless statement that the bomb 'ought to be put under international control.' But curiously little has been said, at any rate in print, about the question that is of most urgent interest to all of us namely: 'How difficult are these things to manufacture?'...

Had the atomic bomb turned out to be something as cheap and easily manufactured as a bicycle or an alarm clock, it might well have plunged us back into barbarism, but it might, on the other hand, have meant the end of national sovereignty and of the highly-centralized police state. If, as seems to be the case, it is a rare and costly object as difficult to produce as a battleship, it is likelier to put an end to large-scale wars at the cost of prolonging indefinitely a 'peace that is no peace.'

-- George Orwell, "You and the Atomic Bomb," October 19, 1945

Near white-out conditions

On the way to and from the ARA1 site to pick up some equipment, this was the view out the window of the pisten bully. Navigating via one flag at a time and dead reckoning.

Wind gusts ripping through our deployment sled tent. Drifting as well around the buildings.

Went and checked on the wind turbines. All are working as designed.

Christian Miki in his natural environment, snow and ice/