Its good to be home...

Hey there everybody, it's my first day off so I figured I would post an update....

Lets begin with the flights down from Centennial to the ice, shall we? DIA-LAX was amazingly (or maybe expectedly) uneventful and quick... Id like to say I saw a wonderful view of LA and the surrounding area, but thanks to that nice blanket of smog...I didn't. The flight to Auckland had a brief delay of about 15 minutes, no big deal, and I was lucky enough to have open seats on either side of me, so it was a very comfortable flight with good food (as far as airlines are concerned) and lots of it. I slept a bit and watched some movies and TV on the on demand system each passenger gets, then we touched down in Auckland about 4:30am on the 18th. (Thanks to the Inernational Date Line Aug 17th simply never happened for me this year.

..weird, I know.) Then we headed to the Domestic Terminal, a nice 12 minute walk (unlike the US New Zealand airports provide you with free baggage carts) after out pre-exsisting 5 and a half hour lay over we were told through a complicated set of circumstances our flight would be delayed and we would recieve a further update at 12:30, about an hour and a half away. So we took our meal vouchers and headed back to the International Terminal for some food, drink, and card games. We hadn't been there more than 10 minutes when Capt. Kroeger found us and told us they had cancelled the flight and were re-booking so we had to re-book ourselves back to the Domestic, eventually after many more lines, and a lay over that took longer than the flight to Auckland we made it to Christchurch (usually a nice hour long flight. )

CHCH was fun as always good food and night life, ECW* issue went well, and we reported to the Antarctic Terminal at 3:30am, geared up and boarded the plane which landed at Pegasus White Ice Runway at exactly** 12:14pm Aug 20th. It was light out, but really more of a twilight, within an hour it was dark...the first time I had seen Mactown in total darkness as I was only here for the summer last season...quite amazing, although no Auroras for me yet.

Yesterday I worked my first shift of the season at the Fire Department and things went smoothly, but slowly. I worked with Pete as he is the outgoing FPO*** and has to pass down all the info to me before he leaves in October. No calls, no excitement, and here I on my day off while most everyone else has to work the second flight of WINFLY scheduled to land in 2 hours at 12:17.

Below are some pictures as of recent and the weather observations from yesterday which was a mild day, although most of it was Condition 2.

 

Again I hope to hear back from everyone, and you can leave comments on here too (signing up really is free with no catches or spam or anything I promise) or e-mail me at the usual mtfd528@aol.com

 

*ECW - Extreme Cold Weather Gear issued to us in CHCH

**The time of the first flight is incredibly important as the winter overs place bets on what minute we will touch down, the largest of all the pools tops out at $6,000 so certainly important to get the right time down.

***FPO - Fire Prevention Officer, the position I will be taking over this year, responsible for fire inspections, public education and extinguishers among other things.