South Africa, Week 2

[Note: pictures couldn't upload to the page at the moment...the site failed. I may try again in a few days.]

Another week has passed, and this one finds me sitting in a four-star hotel in Jo'burg, which I got for cheap through Expedia. Just one night, though, and then it's back to hostels.

Anyway, I believe I left off last weekend, so let me pick it back up from there.

Monday
Officially labelled "Logistics day" by the group - we all sorted out some of our details for the next stages of our lives. Tickets, and so on. This involved the renting of a car for four of us, to travel the Garden route, and the booking of hostels through to the next weekend.

In the afternoon, we were meant to go visit some of the Stellenbosch wineries; but when the time came, we found that none of us could be bothered. I'd already been there, and some of the others were planning to go later; so the plan just fizzled out. So we just stuck to our usual Cape Town haunts, and did a bit of shopping.

Tuesday
Road Trip! The four of us core travellers - me, Jim the chippy, Ant the chef, and Dave the meteorologist, got our car and headed off east. It was a little bit disconcerting at the start - none of the other three had driven in 18 months, and I still haven't ever driven on the left side of the road (despite four years in England). Dave started off, and did well to get us out of the heart of Cape Town.

Our destination was Plettenberg Bay, a nice little town on the south coast about 500 km from Cape Town. The road was relatively good, and we made it there by early evening. The hostel came well-recommended - it was basically someone's house, where they stuck a bar and dormitory on the back. Plett Bay itself had a large number of restaurants and bars and so on, all within walking distance. So we congratulated ourselves on our choice.

Wednesday
A day of looking at local wildlife reserves. First one, elephants:

Always nice to see elephants up close. These ones were young ones rescued from a cull at the Kruger; they would be re-released into the wild in a few years, probably in Botswana. Up close with an elephant, you always wonder what it's thinking. Wouldn't want to play one at poker.

Next to the elephant sanctuary, there was a bird sanctuary. Took loads of shots of birds; not many of them turned out. Here's a few.

It was Africa's biggest aviary, and it was massive. We toured it for about an hour, and then got back to the hostel for a traditional African meal, a type of stew whose name eludes me at the moment.

Thursday
A day of infamy for me. We decided to do a horseback tour of a game reserve. Now, I've always had a problem with heat - this day was a particularly hot sunny day, and I never really noticed how I've subconciously sought out shade and cool whenever I could, in similar circumstances.

No such luck on the back of a horse, proceeding at a walking pace through a field. I got a bit dizzy and nauseous - drank through my water quickly, and completely ignored our guide's descriptions of the animals nearby. I do remember being close to a giraffe at one point. That's about it.

Ah, but afterwards! We got down to the beach in Plett bay, where the waves were huge. We frolicked a bit in the water, and finished off with cocktails on the terrace of a large immaculate hotel with a well-executed sixties decor. A great way to make me forget my three hours of African centurion patrol duty.

Friday
And then there were three. We parted way with Dave at this point - he was progressing further east along the Garden Route, while the rest of us returned to Cape Town. I should say at this point - the Garden Route is a strip along the south coast of South Africa that is very well developed as a holiday area. There is still poverty around the corner, and township communities of ramshackle buildings, but there are also posh beachfronts and restaurant strips. In this sense, it's not the "real" Africa. But appropriate for a holiday.

Anyway, Ant, Jim, and I retraced our steps back to Cape Town with minimal fanfare. When we got back, our favourite hostel was booked up, so we grabbed the one next door. This one ("Zebra Crossing") was a bit more cramped, and had less security, but was still more than fine. We made one last visit to the Waterfront and our favourite pizza place ("Clay Oven" on Long Street). And then off to bed.

Saturday
And then there was one. I finally left Ant and Jim early morning Saturday - Ant was beginning his holiday with his girlfriend, and Jim was beginning an overland tour through Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. So, I was on my own for the first time since early October. Time for a train trip!

The Premiere Shosholoza train left Cape Town on Monday morning. This train had 20 cars on it. And, so far as I could tell, it had about 20 people on it. We literally could of had a car for each of us! But we didn't, of course. We had a room for each of us - a small room, but enough to sleep in comfortably, and sit and watch South Africa go by:


Meals were very good, service was good. The night passed uneventfully. I didn't get to know any of my fellow passengers - mostly elderly couples or families. Besides, I had a stack of fiction to get through, and I was happy.

Sunday
We arrived into Johannesburg around noon. Jo'burg is quite a different story than Cape Town - much bigger, all-business, and has some rough sections that you can wander into. In the absence of a Blumenthal guide, I took no chances and went straight to my hotel, which I picked from Expedia without any location strategy.

A bit more confident when I got there, as the area was nice, I decided to take a walk in a random direction. A half hour later, I ended up at a shopping centre. After wandering around for a bit, I saw a bowling alley/arcade that triggered a memory flashback. I'd been here before!

I love that feeling of sudden re-orientation; you're lost, or in unfamiliar territory, and suddenly you are able to fit what you're seeing with the internal map inside your head. The last time I was in Jo'burg, we came to this suburban shopping centre, by some freak coincidence, to do some last minute shopping. I went looking for a certain bar, where I had a strong memory of Glen consuming a cocktail where waiters kept pouring more liquid into your glass while you drinking it. After finding it easily, I thought about having a cocktail in his honour; however, I was now travelling on my own, and it was lunchtime. Drinking alone at lunch crosses a certain line.

So I returned to my hotel. I phoned my parents, which was nice - only phone call with them since October, except for one brief call from the Shackleton at Christmas. Then, an early night.

And now it's early Monday morning. I must give up my hotel to return to hostel life for two more days, before getting onto a flight back to the UK. This hostel is well-recommended, though, and sounds pretty relaxing. But first, some admin - I have 10 minutes of Internet access left, which must be used to book flights and arrange accommodations. Ah, the life of a transient...

Back to Reality

‘Well here we are, just the four of us...it seems almost like a dream that has slowly faded.’

‘Not to me,’ said Frodo. ‘To me it feels more like falling asleep again.’

One of my favourite quotes, and relatively apt at the moment.

Time for a breather! Four of us from Halley are sitting in a hostel in Plettenburg Bay, on the south coast of South Africa. This town is a bit quiet, and this hostel has Internet, so I can fit in a blog entry, I think. Obviously it's been a busy time for me. But indeed, Halley has already faded into a bizarre dream-like past state for us.

But let's go back to last Wednesday and I shall recall the events.

Wednesday

Woke up at 3:30am. The base was already hopping, and the plane was being de-iced. We actually didn't take off until about 5:15am. But the weather was fine and the flight went relatively smoothly. Before we knew it we were at Sanae, the South African research base and our first stop on the way out.

Sanae is a pretty place - nice cliffs. It's a bigger base than ours, with less people. It had already finished its summer season, so we were greeted by a small team of 12 enthusiastic winterers. While refueling, we looked around their base, and swapped stories about melt-tanks and relief logistics. Then we moved on, leaving them to their lonely winter vigil.

A few hours later, we were at Novo, which is a Russian base with a large airport-ish facility. Novo is a terminus for the Aleutian, the regular flight to Cape Town which is shared by many countries. We didn't see much of the station; it was well-removed from the airplanes. However, we saw one item that made us green with envy:

This sucker was huge, with a four-stroke 1.6 litre engine and two tracks. However, as it transported us between planes, it still spun out on ice and we had to get off the sledge and push it. Guess horsepower isn't everything.

The Aleutian (actually not spelled that way; it's a Russian spelling) is an ex-bomber that has been fitted to take passengers. It's hot, uncomfortable, and has a very haphazard feel to it. This may be partly due to the portable toilets and laptop/projector present, to emulate a real commercial airline's facilities. Of course, our previous aircraft had neither of these luxuries, so we weren't complaining. And we could get up and wander around, even getting into the bomber's room below the pilots. Pretty cool.

Arriving into Cape Town was nice. The logistics company took us to the hotel - the wrong one, at first. The bus was just driving away when we caught the error and we had to chase after it.
The right hotel turned out to be compact but clean, and very well located. It was next to Long Street, where the bars are. So, even after practically no sleep, we went off to the bars to celebrate our arrival. After pizza at 3am Thursday - really good pizza - we finally went back to the hotel, and brought the long day of Wednesday to a close.

Thursday

With a 10am start on Thursday, we shipped off all our Antarctic kit in the morning, back to Cambridge. As I had the most experience of Cape Town among the 18 of us - and I can credit that to the expert tutelage of Doc Mark Blumenthal - I then took charge of social events on Thursday thereafter. We first went down to the waterfront and around downtown, and then out to Camps Bay, where we all hit the beach and blinded all the locals with the whitest skin possible - the kind of white you can only get by complete sun avoidance for several months! Early afternoon beach-sitting turned into late-afternoon bar-sitting, turning into another late-evening bender. I bailed out at 1:30am, but others kept going for considerably longer.

Friday

In the morning, several of us paid a serious penalty for our hijinx on the prevous evening. Not me, though - I didn't overdo it. So I was one of the few laughing at the hungover fellows who had to pack up and move - or, in Toddy's case, get on an airplane back to the UK. Those of us who stayed, moved to a great hostel called the Backpack. It's one of the top rated hostels in Africa, and is in a sprawling villa, downtown, with everything one could need. Including an in-house travel agent. My room was a single en-suite - really nice, but it was next door to the main desk and thus I was woken up every morning at 7am. And that's after a 5 hour time change in the wrong direction. Grr.

Those of us who were able, took a nice long walk along the Atlantic coast beaches. As the sun was setting, we came across what appeared to be either a Bollywood movie or a commercial. Mostly consisted of this lady dancing:

The highlight was this dog, which belonged to someone nearby and kept running into the set.

The angrier the crew got, the more they chased - and, predictably, the more fun the dog had.

Saturday

Table Mountain. I climbed it the last time I was here, but it's one of those things you can do over and over! This time, we started from Kirstinbosch, a botanical garden. It was a 4 hour trek without food - bad planning on my part. Nice views of Cape Town, though:

Sunday

Woke up to book a train ticket at an office open from 8-10 am. Very crowded, full of hundreds of folk rushing to get a train across to the east cape. Very disconcerting! One fellow was screaming at everyone how much he was in a hurry and trying to jump the queue wherever he could. I did get my ticket, though; a premier class room on the overnight train from Cape Town to Johannesburg. There are a variety of train options between the two - the most luxurious (or ludicrous) option is the famous Blue Train, which costs £550. Mine is less than a fifth of that price, but still quite nice.

After that, we took a taxi down the Cape to Boulders Beach, where there's a colony of African penguins. Significantly smaller than our Emporer penguins. But you could swim with these ones.
Think I'll leave it at this point, and pick up this next week later. I have a dinner I must attend!

Tick...tock...

My flight leaves at 4:00am tomorrow. That's about seven hours away.

You'd think that when you're the only plane at the airport; indeed, the only plane within 500 km, you could schedule a departure to be at a more convenient time.

But it's for a good reason that I support - we're trying to get to Cape Town at a respectable hour, so we can get a full night's sleep. Before, we were going to have to overnight it from Novo - the Russian station on the outer edge of Antarctica, close to South Africa. Since I can't sleep on a plane, I don't want this.

So, we are all debating - go to sleep, or stay up?

I think I shall try to sleep. And I can with a clear conscience - my desk is clean, my bags are packed and loaded on the plane. I shall make one last trip to the Simpson, to look for anything I've left behind. Then I shall nap.

And then, to quote REO Speedwagon, I believe it's time for me to fly!

Last weekend! And other people's pics.

It's logistical chaos around here; some people are rabidly busy, others with nothing to do. A few people are taking today off; most had the greater part of the week off, due to bad weather, and are working today.

And yes, the weather was rough, and I was lucky enough to get morning melt tank duty all week. It gusted up to 50 knots around here, and at the Shackleton it got up to 75 knots. They had to cast off and wait it out in open water. The base shook quite a bit; our daily journeys to the Simpson, from the main building, were hellish outbound and a great joy inbound. It was funny; you would be trying to walk normally, but the wind is pushing you hard, encouraging you to "Run! Run faster! FASTER!" And next thing you know, you're sprinting. And you can't really stop, except by falling. And, during all this, you are focussed on the rope that links the two buildings across the 150m distance. If you lose sight of it, you're in trouble.

An odd thing happened at 23:57 local time, for me. I was in bed, getting shaken about by the wind, and decided I would turn on some music I recently acquired from the Halley library. I came across one of those songs that I had heard all my life, but never really registered the name of the song or the artist. The iPod informed me that it was "Eye in the Sky", by the Alan Parsons Project.

Hmm. I had heard of the Alan Parsons Project - I believe it was a joke from the second Austin Powers movie. Anyway, I then immediately grabbed a book from the middle of a stack of early sci-fi novels I had taken from the library, to read that evening.

The book was "Eye in the Sky", by Philip K. Dick.

I was disoriented for a second. I'd never heard of the expression "Eye in the Sky" before - or if I had, it certainly made no impression upon me. I had then been hit with it twice, independently, within 10 seconds. Was it a sign? A cryptic message for me? What could it mean? APP's Eye in the Sky is a reference to casino security cameras; PKD's Eye in the Sky is literally a big eye in the sky, belonging to a divine being. Am I being watched? Should I care?

No. Just a cool coincidence, I imagine. And maybe not that cool, even; we are talking about circa-1980 prog-rock and sci-fi. More of a retro-geeky coincidence.

Anyway, the final countdown is on. Wednesday morning at 5:00 AM local, I lift off for the Russian Novo station, and thence to Cape Town. My sites are all up and running, and reporting in beautifully on schedule. My bags are packed. My project is an unqualified success. I've still got a bit of clutter around here, but it's all manageable. Still, I get the feeling I'm forgetting something, but I have a few days to find out what.

Anyway, yes, I believe I promised some pictures. Here is the entire 2007-8 Halley crew:


I'm in the middle, directly below the Union Jack, immediately up and to the right from Simon, one of the guys in front with the green jacket (not that you can even see individual people). And here's Rich taking that picture:


Here's better proof that I was actually in the Antarctic. Bear in mind that an orange insulated boiler suit, as I'm wearing, adds the appearance of at least 30 pounds to your picture.


Here's one in the last week, kitted up to handle the winds. Or I will be, once I zip up and put my gloves on. Remember: 30 pounds.


And here is one of the sun setting.


Finally. It has ceased its unswerving vigil upon us from above. It's almost like it's been...

The eye in the sky; Looking at you, it can read your mind.
It is the maker of rules; dealing with fools, it can cheat you blind
And it doesn't need to see any more to know that it can read your mind.

It can read your mind.

Creepy.

Diary: Week of 10-17 February.

Whoo-eey! Been a busy week here. Let's do this chronologically - assuming I can remember it all in the correct order.

Monday
Rich, my field comrade, was diverted to start doing pleasure trips to the Hinge Zone for the winterers, which temporarily stranded me on base. And Toddy went with him, dammit. This left Kirk and Pete, who were also both trained for field support. Pete started getting together the usual supplies, and we planned to leave for site D10, a troublemaker, at lunch.

However, I apparently had other travel plans. Mark, the pilot, stopped me and said "Be at the plane at 1pm." I responded with a blank stare. He followed up, "You're copiloting today's flight."

Copilot. Every flight needs one. In normal places, this would be a second pilot, or an air mech. At Halley, it is a privilege granted to wintering staff (and the occasional summerer who's been there for four months). Although, the job title would more appropriately be "human ballast". Your job is to occupy the seat, and not to touch anything; and in the event of a horrible crash, you are to make tea and presumably provide body heat to the pilot until help arrives. Fortunately, Mark required neither of these services during the duration of the flight.

We flew around the ice shelf; I got a few pics. [...]

Upon landing, I managed to get out to D10 and fix it, with Pete. So, a busy day.

Tuesday
My new field mate Pete and I went out to E00, a site I have not brought online yet. After fiddling with antennas for a bit, we stopped by the nearby Halley VI site.

I thought Neil had a lonely spot out at the CAS lab. The Halley VI site is 12 km away and occupied by four guys. They've got a few trailers out there, a stack of movies to watch, food, and tea. We were offered the latter two - they don't get many visitors. But we declined, and left them to their mast erecting and snow grooming.

Wednesday
On Wednesday, I began an effort to reduce my gargantuan calorie intake. I certainly couldn't sustain it back in the UK. That's it for me on Wednesday.

However, on Wednesday night at 10:04PM local, something happened that I'd been awaiting for months. The sun set. Hooray! We partied all night. All four minutes of it.

Thursday
Back to the Rumples - this time, with Kirk, the last of the four field folk. Kirk, as well as being a field guy, is shooting a documentary about this season at Halley; so, he came along with his camera. We fiddled with more antennas, downloaded some data, and then he shot a little bit of footage of me talking about the Rumples and my project. It'll show up in his documentary, which will probably be an internal British Antarctic Survey product only. But still, it was fun to do, and I'll see the end result in a week.

Friday
On Friday, I wrote code to consolidate the GPS raw data into a format that could be posted on an internal BAS website. Interesting for me, perhaps, but probably not for you.

Saturday
We got word that bad weather is coming in, so we went back out to the Rumples to do some more surveying. This mostly meant strapping a GPS to my skidoo and driving around the rolling "hills" in the ice. I'd been dreading it for awhile - after 1600km of skidoo riding this season (we counted), riding several hours at 10km/h was a bit dry. But it got done, and that's my last major trip for the season. Now I can sit in the 40 knot winds this week and not feel guilty that I should be out in the field.

Saturday night was a improv/skit night, with our house band headlining. Previously named "Z or Dead", as Z is the code for Halley (all our jobs are coded too, like ZChef, ZElec, etc; my code is ZLife), they changed their name to "Toucan Rool and the Ticksheets". That'd be a reference to the "two-can rule" for alcohol, which was suspended for the evening. A bit of a messy night, as a result. Fortunately, I refrained from the mess, planning ahead for Sunday (see below). But when I got up for my usual 4am Marmite sandwich - another habit I'd like to break before returning to the UK - they were still partying hard. Most impressive.

Sunday
Finally, today there was a fundraising event where we were to transport ourselves around the perimeter to make a total of 300 circuits among us all. At 5km a circuit, that's the distance to get to the South Pole. Some ran, some walked, some skied, some kited. I chose to ski, of course, as I brought my nordic skis with me. I did four laps, 20km, which was roughly on par. I felt pleasantly tired. Then I watched some movies, and wrote a blog entry, conveniently organized into daily entries.

And then I apologized to my readers, as I was too tired to go to the Simpson and get my camera to download the pictures. I went to bed, instead.

The Shack is back

Yes, everyone's favourite Antarctic vessel is back, moored up in its usual spot at Creek 4 on Thursday. And it will stay here for the rest of the season, leaving in about a month. However, it doesn't look like I'll get to see it this time - the second relief is short. I think it may actually already be over. But it was a bit nostalgic yesterday to hear the Captain's Scottish voice on the radio methodically announcing and confirming cargo..."Yes, that's acknowledged, three empty Germans coming ship side..."

Meanwhile, I'm putting finishing touches on this and that, helping occasionally with packing, and little things here and there. Melt-tank duty, for instance. It occurs to me, I've never posted a picture of melt-tank duty. Here's one:


I've split all my current possessions into three groups: a) stuff that can stay here until next season; b) stuff that I can send back on the Shack; and c) stuff that comes with me to Africa. That last group is meant to be as small and non-valuable as possible.

Rich and I have done a few more trips - one of them is to the Rumples, where we drive and walk around with a GPS strapped to us so we can map the undulations in the ice. Here are the Rumples, and Rich with the GPS pack (we swapped it around a bit, so we both had pack duty).



In general, one can feel that things here are wrapping up. The services people - carpenters, plumbers, etc. - are starting to run low on things to do. The Halley VI site is starting to cocoon for the winter, tenting up some of the modules. And people are starting to plan their trips home in earnest. And the sun is actually starting to think about setting. Here it is, waffling about 10 degrees from the horizon.


In the end, it decided to wait a little longer. There's still a bit more to do around here.

Dirty!

Theme of the week: Dirty. Filthy, dirty!

First dirty item: The CASLab, the Clean Air Sector Lab. Pictured below:


Notice the snowmobile in the foreground? Not quite kosher for a Clean Air Sector, right? First one to be there in fifteen years. On Monday, we officially dirtied up the air and decommisioned the CAS Lab, soon to be re-established 10km away at Halley VI.

Nothing like sullying something pristine to raise the spirits. We were in the process of pouring dirty tar all over the lab and setting it on fire - a Viking funeral for a Halley V landmark - but the Health and Safety people intervened before we threw the first torch. Damn bureaucrats.

Second dirty item: The ionosphere. Terrible this week! My wireless devices report in over 12km distances wirelessly...but they found it difficult recently. Solar flares and whatnot are causing serious interference; if it was dark, we'd have some stonking good aurora borealis. As it is, I've had to adjust my algorithms to be very, very patient when transmitting data. Like waiting up for a minute to send a kilobyte of data. Filthy, dirty ionosphere!

Final dirty item: me. I'm not going to be starring in any deodorant advertisements any time soon. Greasy hair, bit of acne, and God knows what I smell like. I miss running water. However, if everything is relative, I'm doing all right - a few people came in from deep field this week where they hadn't bathed for a few weeks. Filthy, dirty people! Not like us civilized people who bathe once a week.