January 20, 2025 


January 20


Jan 20 brought more excitement!  After some morning talks while sailing to our next destination (based on weather), we had our second historical hut visit, at Camp Evans on Ross Island after dinner.  This hut, built by the Scott expedition team, has, like the Camp Adare hut, significant importance.  More later.  Al Frastier, one of our guides, is about to receive honors for his career working in the Antarctic, particularly the last 20 or so years working for the Antarctic Heritage Trust and restoring the huts used by the Heroic Explorers (Shackleton, Borchgrevink, Scott, and Hillary).  Al started work on the Borchgrevink hut (work that is still in progress; see last blog - Cape Adare) and on this occasion showed us the Scott hut at Camp Evans.   Try to imagine that these huts are over 100 years old and have survived in the harshest environment on the planet.  Every board, nail, hinge, fork, tool, article of clothing, and even toilet paper, were restored with the expectation they will last at least an additional 35 years.  They carefully photographed EVERY item (1500 from this hut), restored each, then placed them back exactly as they had been found.  There were so many amazing items refurbished, but for both of us, most impressionable is the seal blubber that has been preserved and placed back in the hut.




IMG_2373.jpeg


IMG_3419.jpeg

Cape Evans - Hut of Scott’s British Expedition team, 1910 - 1913


All of us were repeatedly reminded to not move or touch anything (including the ground, except for our boots that have been cleaned before stepping foot on land) and helped the expedition team leave the site as is.





This is probably our favorite item in the hut.  You are seeing seal blubber that is over 100 years old.  It had multiple purposes, but hard to imagine it doesn’t smell (and it doesn’t).  Again, everything in the huts, including the nails, was preserved and put back exactly as it was found.


After dinner, we went out again (8:30-10pm) on a late evening zodiac ride to the sea ice pack and to some of the nearby islands.  Penguins were everywhere, the sky was blue and the clouds were bright with an amazing ring above Mt. Erebus, an active and erupting (spewing a cloud of fumes) volcano.  Jody asked the guide if Minke whales in the Southern Hemisphere poke through the ice like the Northern Minke whales.  He said probably not, but within 30 seconds, she saw a Minke come up through the ice not 30’ away!  Sorry, it was too spontaneous to get a photo!


IMG_2660.jpeg



Adelie penguin


IMG_2715.jpeg

Adelie Penguin

IMG_2714.jpeg


This Weddell seal is chewing a hole in the ice to either get water, or create a hole for grabbing fish.  Jody has some wonderful video of this beautiful creature trying to get to our zodiac looking very much like Jabba the Hut.


IMG_2699.png

This shot of Mt. Erebus was taken at 10:20pm.  The airflow above the mountain was considered an ominous sign for changing weather (which turned out to be the case).






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

December 29 2024

Image
Hello family and friends! A number of people asked us to blog our travels, so we are taking advantage of this trip to start documenting our travels. We have come to realize we are truly bipolar.  We have been to the Arctic five times and are now embarking on our second trip to the Antarctic.  Two years ago, we began in Ushuaia, Argentina, and went to three subantarctic islands including the Falklands, South Georgia, and South Orkney Islands. We then made our way to the Antarctic Peninsula, a broad strip of the Antarctic that protrudes well above the Antarctic Circle (on that trip, we had an on-board toast when we crossed the Circle and shortly after we turned around to had back north to Ushuaia).   This trip will begin in Queenstown, New Zealand.  Our first trip to NZ, we will spend a week exploring the South Island.  We meet our group in a week, then board our ship on January 8th and head to several sub-Antarctic islands.  More to come later. For now, we h...
Read more
Image
 New Zealand, January 2, 2025 We left Queenstown this morning.  It’s a town centered around winter skiing and as we were leaving town, we drove by one of the major mountains called The Remarkables.  We personally thought it was remarkable as there were no chair lifts to be seen.  Hmmm. We had a pleasant ride to Te Anau with no plans for the afternoon.  It’s a small town and the woman at reception suggested we go on a jet boat tour on the Waiau River, connecting Lake Te Anau with Lake Manapouri.  OMG, what a great afternoon!  Our guide has been doing this for 55 years, and when he did his first “spin” with our boat, we couldn’t believe it (video attached). We had a GREAT tour of the river leading to Lake Manapouri, learned about how the lake is used for hydroelectric power, AND how the river was used for scenes in the movie The Lord of the Rings.   We were also impressed with the Kepler Trail, a 60km (37 mile) route with huts that are used for over...
Read more
Image
January 4, 2025 - Wanaka, South Island, New Zealand  Today was a more leisurely day, but we still packed in a good workout, then made our way to the Blue Pools. Imagine pristine water the color of a gorgeous aqua marine stone. It was well worth a short ~1 mile hike to see it up close.                                                    The forest has a dense and lush canopy and is filled with singing birds, ferns, moss, foxglove in purple and white, and trees not only reaching skyward, but in strange shapes and angles. Many look like they have bent with time, but were not quite ready to decay, they just kept growing.   The above tree looked like an open hand. In this last photo, there is a flat disc-like formation on the trunk of the tree. It’s called a Southern Bracket (laymen:  “Platform Mushroom”), and is a polypore. They are quite amazing! ...
Read more