Things have been rather slow - we are just waiting to go - and I will likely head out to the rig tommorrow or Tuesday. But here are a few sites around McMurdo from the bit of hiking we did. Flat Stanley came along too - he needed some exercise after eating all those cookies last week. Here he is jumping up and dow with the two Thomas's when we reached the top of Ob Hill (about 230 m high).
Observation Hill - this is a hill right next to McMurdo that we are allowed to climb to see the view. At the top of Ob Hill is a cross that was erected in 1912 by the party who found Scott's team. Scott and his men tried to be the first to make it to the South Pole but they were beaten by Amundsen. They then perished on the return journey. They walked all the way to the South Pole from here but they apparently became trapped in a blizzard before they could get back to their large cache. Their records and pictures actually survived. There are lots of good websites that talk about this story - and of other early explorers such as Shackleton and Amundsen.
Here are a couple of views from Obs Hill. The one of the left is back towards Erebus again (I cannot take enough pictures of it) - but unfortunately it is covered at the top by clouds.The next one shows the direction towards the ANDRILL rigsite - but it is too far away to be able to see the camp unless you have some
binoculars!If you look very closely you can see the temporary sea ice runway with four large propeller planes down there. If I am lucky I will get to go to those mountains one day for a field trip to check out the source of the different rocks.
Finally, here is a picture of what some of the ground around Obs Hill looks like - you might think you were on Mars!
So, this is likely the last post till I go to the rig - maybe tommorrow! Then things will be very busy.
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