The Journey South

 

I find myself pondering the passing of another U.K. summer - as the leaves begin to turn and my mind turns with them to thoughts of going away. I’ll once more be swapping the onset of autumn for the early days of summer in Antarctica. It’s a slightly strange time – that last week or so before deployment. I am looking forward to the season ahead but there is also a reluctance to leave behind my life in Eskdale, and a desire to hold onto all those things that cannot possibly be held on to. But as hard as it is to say goodbye for another year, I know deep down that it is the going away that makes me love those special places and those special people all the more. The nature of all things is to change, and maybe it is that impermanence which gives them great beauty and gives us great joy.

 

I usually spend the immediate few days before departure at my mum’s, and this year was no different. I treasure that time so much – it’s relaxing, and full of laughter and much tea drinking. I was also able to visit my sister and her kids (who were a good deal more hyper by the time I left, and all their footballs had been lost to next door’s garden). My younger brother came up to stay for a few days, and it was so lovely to see him as well. He was also able to drop me off at Heathrow for my flight which I was extremely grateful for – both for the company and for practical reasons as well. It’s a considerable faff taking two big kit bags and hand luggage on trains and then the underground, and last year when I got a hire car it took me a full 10 minutes to work out how to turn the engine on. My 09-plate van does not even have electric windows, and all this new car technology utterly baffles me!

 

In order to get to Rothera we fly commercially to Punta Arenas in the south of Chile via first Sao Paulo and then Santiago. From Punta we then take the BAS owned Dash-7 plane across the Drake Passage and down to station. Even if everything goes smoothly it’s a long old journey, and right from the very start of this trip things were not quite going to plan! We boarded the plane at Heathrow on time, and started to taxi to the runway but promptly returned to the gate as it was announced that there was an issue with the left engine. This problem was eventually resolved, and two hours later we were underway and airborne. We had however given up all hope of making our connecting flight in Sao Paulo – but that was something to concern ourselves with in 12 hours’ time. I had watched most of the movie Chevalier while the plane was being fixed and had watched the rest of it and fallen asleep before the evening meal was served. The redeeming factor of needing to take travel sickness pills is that they make you slightly drowsy. Even so, the sleep was only as good as plane sleep can be, and I woke up to the realisation that I had missed one of the exciting moments that break up the monotony of a long-haul flight! Quite miraculously, we landed in Sao Paulo to discover that they had held our onward flight to Santiago, so the 12 of us ran across Sao Paulo airport and tried to look apologetic rather than delighted when we boarded the plane. But it turns out we needn’t have either worried or have rushed. This plane also had an issue with the left engine, and we sat motionless for two hours before everyone had to disembark. We were then told to return to the gate a few hours later, only to be told that the plane wasn’t flying anywhere. So, we went through Brazilian passport control and customs where we were issued with a 10-day Brazilian visa, collected our bags, and waited in a queue for nearly 5 hours to try and rearrange our flights. We passed a crossword book around, we took it in turns to go outside and step foot on Brazilian soil, we played some make-shift football with a crushed up plastic water bottle, and we drank cold, cold beer with no thought as to what time of day it was. We were fully expecting to spend a night in Sao Paulo, but they ended up putting an extra flight on that would get us into Santiago at about 11pm, and then boarding the onward flight to Punta at 3.30am. The tiredness was starting to creep in, but I think we were all largely managing to remain accepting of the situation rather than being frustrated by it. And the upside of the whole thing – for me at least – was getting a Brazilian stamp in my passport, and bumping into the Brazilian baseball team who were also trying to get to Santiago (for the PanAm Games). Not that I’m remotely a baseball fan, but it added a small element of excitement and I found myself wishing them well and determined to check on their progress (they were surprise finalists and lost to the equally surprising finalists, Colombia). We arrived in Punta at 9am and checked into the hotel in time for breakfast. I had a shower, and then lay down on my hotel room double bed for several hours – not really sleeping, but reading, dosing, and above all delighting in the fact that I was neither on a plane nor at an airport. We were staying at a hotel in the centre of town, and I had a nice room on the fourth floor overlooking a tree-lined square. I could see a tall church spire with its red roof and hear its bells. I could also see the hills beyond which still had patches of snow on them that the spring has not yet thawed. That evening I wandered down to the front with Jacob to play some chess on the chess boards painted onto concrete tables. I had brought a travel chess set with me, and the pieces looked tiny on the enormous squares and moving a pawn to e4 has never seemed so bold. It was a beautiful, still night with the sky tinged a gentle pink. It felt good to be back in Punta, and to know that we had at least another full day there before the weather looked good enough to get into Rothera. In the end it was the best part of a week, arriving on the Monday morning and departing on the Saturday. Within that time, we had to move hotels once, to the Patagonia B&B. We were told by someone who had stayed there previously that the bathrooms are very nice, but if you’ve got a room on the ground floor keep your window closed if you don’t like cats.  I was quite glad of a few days to rest and recover after the journey down, and to be able to appreciate the things which would soon disappear from my life for the next four months. Simple things like wandering aimlessly around the streets of a town, and probably the biggest thing outside of family and friends that I miss when in Antarctica – green and trees. A few of us went up to the Magallanes National Reserve one day – a twenty-minute taxi ride to the park entrance. Some of the trails were closed – presumably because of snow, but there was still plenty of walking to enjoy. I absolutely loved being amongst the trees, and hearing the wind move through the branches, and feeling the chill of it above the treeline. I was conscious of wanting to savour those moments; the sounds, the smells, and the sense of freedom that comes from being in a land not bound by ocean, ice, and snow. But of that icy land – there was so much I was looking forward to, the stunning snowcapped peaks, the wildlife, the warmth of my friends, and the sense of community on base. In fact, I found myself quietly looking forward to the season more than ever before, and as the Dash-7 came into Rothera I felt a few tears welling up at the wonder of it all. It felt so very good to be back.