Travels & Adventures

Fly Dubai

2008-11-27T02:54:00.001-08:00

The Fly Dubai trip is a helicopter scenic around Dubai. Rob organized a trip while his Mum was over visiting for a few days. It was an awesome flight and I had both cameras clicking away the whole time!! We flew out over the 'World' development, round the Burj Al Arab and the Burj Dubai as well as across the Palms and down the creek. Had a kiwi pilot so was pretty good to us. Anyway here's a couple of photos. Haven't sorted them properly yet, surprise, surprise..

HNZ's new AW 139

HNZ have a new machine that was being ferried from Italy to Australia. (what an awesome trip to be on!). A couple of Robs old workmates from NZ were on the trip so we caught up for a couple of beers and cokes with them on their way through. Unfortunately the trip was cut short as Pakistan couldn't get it's s..t together after 3 months notice to issue the machine clearance to fly through the country, or get the boys visas. Italy, Greece, Crete, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, India, Oman, Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia, all managed to, however not Pakistan. So they ended up back at the Aerogulf hangar waiting to try and work some other form of transport for the machine.

The World. Crazy. Never thought I would fly around the World in a helicopter in one day, but we managed. haha. Yeah but this truly is an interesting sight. I will have to upload a pic of the ship thats building the islands. Pumping the sand up and making these man made islands, in the shape of the World. A few of the islands have been purchased already however there is only one place built which you can see in the foreground here.

Dubai of course is currently building the tallest building in the world. This is it. You've got to see it to believe it. It just towers above everything else and you can see it from miles away.

The Palms. You may have seen the $20 million fireworks display for the opening about a week ago. About 4 mill for a place out on the Palms. That's US dollars too, which is about double NZ these days.

The Burj hotel. 7 star. Will do a seperate post on this place. Looking down towards the city

Laos 2008

2008-11-13T21:22:00.000-08:00

The last and rest of Laos, just a couple more photos...next stop Bangkok again, then Dubai.

It hosed down(again) just after taking this photo, was a good half an hour on bike from accomodation, so got pretty drenched and muddy!

Didn't hang around to see the fate of these ducks.

Pancakes, Laos style. Yum o. The young girl was supposed to be eating her dinner at the table in the background! Good old wide angle lense!

Heading home

Vang Vieng, Laos

2008-11-13T06:21:00.000-08:00

I then jumped on a 'VIP' bus to Vang Vieng. I love the term VIP in some of the countries I have travelled to. VIP on an internal Laos bus means overcrowded, taping plastic bags to the roof to catch all the rain coming through, etc, etc. However it did have chandeliers the down the aisle which was rather special!

Anyway I made it safe and sound and checked in to Vang Vieng for a few days. If you can get away from the strange amount of backpackers who would rather watch 'Friends' in the open restaurants along the main drag than check out the local area, it's a pretty cool, chilled out little town.

Vang Vieng

Nam Song River. Tubing Laos styles

2 Chileans, 1 Frenchy, 2 Laos/French, 1 American and a Kiwi made up our river crew

So for those that have 'tubed in vang vieng' you will know what I am talking about. I didn't spend all day doing it thank goodness and instead opted for a day trip. This involved some crazy caving (not too sure about the theory of paddling against the current), strolling through villages a long way from nowhere and climbing over many slippery fences & creeks to get to other hidden caves.

The torrential downpours, lightning & thunder was nothing short of impressive!

Anyway after all of that and splitting our crew into kayakers and tubers (I just wrote another sentence then but deleted it) you may guess what lines it went along, haha! we were off tubing!

Tubing seems to be a bit of a 'must do' on the backpackers SE Asia trip and I can now see why!

The river is lined with bars serving cheap whisky buckets and beer Laos predominantly.

Add to that a bunch of zip lines, flying fox's, massive slides into the river, loud music and you have the tubing scene.

I wasn't actually expecting it to be as much fun as I ended up having. I guess it's the old "not expecting to have a good time- end up having a great time, talking a night up - turns out not to be as good" scenario!

Unfortunately this site doesn't want to upload my video for some reason so none of that to share. Will try and sort that one out. Anyway it was good times on the river.

The trail to the cave walk. My jandal lasted all of 200metres.

Vientiane, Laos 2008

2008-11-13T05:54:00.000-08:00

After Siem Reap/Angkor Wat I headed for Laos. Now I have one of those "NZ is a small place" stories for Laos. On the Lao Airline flight from Pakse (small village, southern Laos) there was a guy sitting opposite & behind me wearing an HNZ hat. Hmmm, I guess I better say something I thought. I don't always talk to strangers. Spent the next 40minutes having a few laughs about a bunch of mutual people we know. Turns out Angus (the pilot) is mates with Rob and they spent '04 season at Terra Nova (Italian Antarctic Base) working together! Small world!

Awesome sunset over the Mekong, had just got off the bus from Vang Vieng after 4 hours, grabbed my camera and ran down to the river. Okay, I didn't run all the way, I did some fast walking.

Riverfront, Vientiane

Cooking up a feed

Well earned Beer Laos after another BIG day. It's been a BIIGGGG day.(funny joke that I'm sure some of you know!).

So met quite a few other people in Laos, followed the directions Rob gave me one night, sort of got lost, but saw a 'Tiger beer' sign in the distance, so headed down the dirt road aiming for that. Turns out it was where my directions had told me to go! Ended up at a great wee local bar and spent the night firstly having a couple of drinks with some kiwi drillers and their Ops Manager of SE Asia sites.

Then finished my night sharing a couple more drinks (not from the same glass) talking to a World Economist and getting a run down on the global economy, very interesting and I learnt a lot! Amazing what you can learn when you just keep on walking down a long dirt road in the middle of Laos and come across a bar by the Mekong!

Angkor Wat, Cambodia '08

2008-11-13T05:32:00.000-08:00

Angkor Wat. I guess no visit to Cambodia is complete without visiting here. So back to Cambodia I came to check it out, very pleased I did. Hard to sum the place up in a few photos, but won't bore you with hundreds, so here are just 5 of Angkor Wat.

Even travelling by Tuk Tuk between the temples there are some impressive sites.

Ta Prohm

2008-11-13T05:08:00.000-08:00

Ta Prohm would have to be my favourite temple in Cambodia. This is probably the case for a lot of folk that have been here. The trees are so cool the way they have grown and made themselves at home amongst the ruins of this temple. I went back here on 2 seperate days and managed to see really cool new things I hadn't seen the first time around.

Taking a break from selling souvenirs, unfortunately not a break from the heat.

I tried to pick my arrival times at the temples for when the big tour groups weren't there. Definitely paid off as it meant I managed to get some shots without hundreds of people crawling all over the place. It just happened to coincide with the mid-day heat of the sun, but sometimes you just have to put up with that to get better photos I guess! Nothing a cold beer at the end of the day won't fix anyway!

Awesome ah!

Inside the ruins of Ta Prohm temple

'The Tree', that everyone who has been here has their photo taken under!

That is until not sure how long ago when they roped off a few of these areas. Probably a good idea I guess. There was a bit of work going on around the temples with crews doing various conserving of the ruins. So if any of you AHT (Antarctic Heritage Trust) read this blog and want to go there you could probably get some work helping out!

Hmm...speaking of AHT, I guess the fact I have a blog now might mean some time for blog revenge? I hope not, I was just trying to keep things interesting for you!!

Anyway, will try and sum up the rest of Angkor Wat and surroundings in one more post! Harder done than said!

Siem Reap, Cambodia

2008-11-13T04:33:00.000-08:00

October 2008.

After a great couple of weeks in Indonesia/Thailand I jumped on a plane and headed over to Siem Reap. Once I had checked out Angkor Wat and this area then I have been to both the south of Cambodia, Phnom Penh and now further North. A visit to Cambodia I guess isn't really complete without visiting Angkor Wat.

Then it comes down to how to sum it up in a few photos after taking a few hundred!

At the same time I was in Laos and Cambodia, Northern Vietnam was suffering from their worst floods in over 20 years. That made it a bit clearer as to why all the streets were flooded in Cambodia also. Looks like I am in a boat in this picture, but it's actually a tuk tuk on the main street. Nothing to the extent of the rains that Vietnam is suffering from.

I went on a trip out onto Tonle Sap lake (largest lake in SE Asia) and had a look at one of the floating villages. School, church, shops, houses, everything built on boat or floating somehow on the lake. Quite impressive. Above is some of the accomodation.

Snake anyone? His friend doesn't look extremely impressed at his new found pet!

Bangkok Adventures...

2008-11-13T04:07:00.000-08:00

After arriving back in Bangkok much browner and not looking so much like another white pom we had a night before Rob departed to head back to Dubai for the next 6 week tour. The original plan was for me to stay on for the weekend so I could catch up with my mate Lara who is now working and living in Bangkok. So after Rob departed at the fun hour of 430am I got a couple, okay 4 more hours sleep before heading round to the Chatrium Apartments!

A couple of other mates, Nat & Drew also timed their passing through BKK to coincide with the weekend, so it was a great catchup! Lara's friend Jemma, who is now my Facebook friend and real friend was also in town for the occasion!

We headed to the Chatachak weekend markets in BKK for a bit of shopping and looking. Spent a good few hours here, so a game of frisbee and competitions in the pool was well deserved after that! Followed of course by Pad Thai lady for dinner. (not actually Pad Thai lady), but the Pad Thai that she cooked...)....delicious!

And for 30baht! Can't go wrong! Coke next door...20baht. That's a damm good meal for just over $2 kiwi!

It was hard to see when I was putting this on if the crab was in the pic or not, unfortunately I got the wrong one, this is on one of the beaches in Thailand! Again Rob and I both took pics, his one's are probably better so credit to him again.

I decided while in this part of the country it would be silly not to go back to Cambodia and get up to Siem Reap/Angkor Wat. Being the main drawcard of Cambodia and I didn't go there last time, so I booked a flight and headed for Cambodia for round 2 !!!

Thanks Lara a million for letting us leave some gear at the ***** (that's 5 star) accomodation so we could travel down south nice and light, and of course for having me stay on my way to and from Laos/Cambodia...Cheers! Hope I can return the favour somewhere down the line.

In case I don't repost on Bangkok, I went to Lara's class at school and did a talk on Antarctica for the kids, showed a few pics and answered I think it was 121 questions. Great kids though.

Nearly had a career change after going for the staff lunch. WOW. Talk about a buffet 3 times the size of Skyline buffet and 4 times the quality of food! (before Sarah did her stint as manager!). So if anyone wants a really good lunch in BKK, find something really interesting that Lara's class may like to hear about and study and then call Lara. 0800 Pad Thai #1 fan.

Koh Phi Phi/Krabi/TonSai.....

2008-11-13T03:52:00.000-08:00

More photos from time spent Southern Thailand, out on the islands..

Pretty good self-portrait from Rob while I was off exploring elsewhere

yeah I'm white. I have come straight from a winter

we both took good photos of nemo fish, so I'm not sure who the credit goes to for this one, I will give it to Rob for now!

We did an awesome Thai Cooking class, one of the coolest things I have done in Thailand. Learnt to make some great dishes (we got to choose 3 dishes each), so chose different ones of course, so we could learn even more!..

Food tasted delicious and we learnt a lot of important info for cooking Thai Cuisine.

Have tried recreating some of these dishes since arriving in Dubai a few days ago. The Thai Green curry is hard to get as good, but we did a great job and it was still delicious! Vegetable with cashews, chicken with cashews were equally as good. But as for the Pad Thai, let's just say I will stick to buying my Pad Thai from the Pad Thai lady on Choeng Krung Road, just down from Laras apartment!

Thailand 2008

2008-11-13T03:22:00.000-08:00

Must try and find some photos of Thailand '05 I think it was? Maybe '06? Good trip with about 8 of us! But Jeremy was so homesick for Jane the poor boy!

Anyway, Thailand 2008..

Spent a night in Bangkok then headed down to the west side of Southern Thailand, an area Rob has been before but I hadn't. We both however had not spent much time out on the islands on this side. So a night in Phuket which ended up in 2 terrible headaches the next day! Then we were off to Koh Phi Phi island, which was just idyllic as they say.

White sand beaches, crystal clear water and nice cheap private boats to hire for a few hours.

We found some great bars on the island for our post adventure drinks and had some great time snorkelling, swimming and discovering new places.

Indonesia after Winter '08

2008-11-13T02:50:00.000-08:00

Time to go on holiday! Yahhhh! Drove up to Chch to watch one of Pauls rugby games for Canterbury 'B', however due to a broken cheekbone against Auckland 2 weeks before I ended up watching him run water onto the field instead!

Flights to the Ice were all backed up and delayed, so caught up with a few of the crew heading down again over a few beers at the dux!

Left NZ near the end of the Winter season and headed to Indonesia to meet up with Rob who had been doing some diving back on the Gili Islands, just off Lombok. (see earlier post). I have wanted to try and learn to surf for ages, so did a few days of this in Bali. Spent plenty of time getting smashed out in the big waves, a bit of time actually riding some smaller waves and had a great time allround. We had some good nights drinking Bintang and cocktails. Apart from the cocktails at the 'birthday' bar (can't remember real name), as Josh and Sally will confirm. Luckily we moved on to a really nice restaurant where we proceeded to drink a few Baileys Comets and eat one of the best steaks ever!

Me getting smashed again!

Hmmm....out I head to get pummeled again!!

All photos taken by Rob. Thank youuuu.

So that's a few pics of the surfing side of things, I'm sure we took more of all our other activities, maybe not? Ah well.

On to Thailand for the 3rd time next...

Mt Cook, July 2008

2008-11-13T02:09:00.000-08:00

When Rob came over on his time off we headed up to the Hermitage at Mt Cook for a few days.

Got a $300 room for $65 which was a pretty impressive deal, same company that I work for in Qt, so a pretty good benefit there. Took a few photos of course.

Mt Sefton. Aoraki National Park.

Pretty lucky to get a few shots of this avalanche, had my camera pointing that way at the time, heard it and then snapped away! Mt Sefton again.

Looking up the hooker valley towards Sefton & Footstool on the left and Mt Cook up the end.

With our new Canon timers we set up a few time lapse's with the camera. Unfortunately the first day/night the cloud didn't really lift about 600m so not the greatest time lapse. On our way back from Wellington driving past Lake Pukaki it did look like the weather might clear, so we decided to head back up to Mt Cook for another night. Lucky call, as it cleared up. Rob was quite a bit more committed than me to the cause and got up at about 4am in the morning, went and got in the car, drove away from all artificial lighting and set up a 20minute long exposure shot to get some photos of Mt Cook, the valley, the moon and stars. So the credit for this photo must go to Rob. I stayed tucked up in the warmth in my duvet and it was worth every second.(at the time!).

Winter 2008...

2008-11-13T01:52:00.000-08:00

North Shoulder skiing

Sandman on our Toilet Bowl run

Another morning at the office

Heliworks slinging the weather station up to East Knoll for us

Michel cutting cornice, Mid Station Bowl. Skied it from this point on

Winter 2008

2008-11-13T01:17:00.000-08:00

Back to NZ for Winter 20 in Queenstown. Back to Remarks for my 3rd season working there, and now onto my 7th season ski patrolling. I seem to have been rather slack on the old photo taking this season, now that I look back on it I should have taken many more photos.

Here's a few...

Sandman 'working'. Toilet Bowl, Remarkables

Actually we did deserve this run after skinning up and spending an hour or so searching for a live round after an Avalauncher shoot..

Cool clouds, on the way down the hill after another day at the office

Double Cone, Grand Couloir & Lake Alta. From the top of the chutes

Early season medi-vac with THL.

Start of the season started off nice and promising, followed by Coronet opening, then closing then reopening again. Nice early season snowfall here, practicing "winter driving in winter conditions" outside Kellys Bar in Frankton, while awaiting pick up for an early shift up the hill.

Oman..

2008-11-12T23:43:00.000-08:00

My mate Miffy is also living in Dubai so she planned a weekend excursion over to Oman as she had a couple of other friends staying also(Sophie & Neil).

So we cruised over to Oman, managed to live through the 45 degree heat. It was ridiculously hot. ( I think it was 45, or was it just 40?). Anyway, it was ridiculous all the same.

We went on a big boat cruise right up the coast for some snorkelling one day, then checked out the locals bringing in the fish from the ocean the next day. A great trip away.

Whoops, so this photo is actually on the Sinai.

Directing the fish to swim in to the net....Oman.

Hmm..maybe more Sinai. Chilling with the camels.

Unfortunately I took all my photos in Oman in RAW format on my camera, which is making it too big to upload onto here, will try and desize some and get them on here. So a bit of a lack of Oman photos for this post. Sorry.

Dubai..

2008-11-12T23:18:00.000-08:00

Back to Dubai as Rob started his next tour. I stayed in Dubai for a couple of weeks before returning to NZ to start work. For my birthday Rob got me a Fly Dubai trip with his company which was awesome! (The perk meaning he could make sure the airconditioning worked in the machine!). I can't find my photos from the trip at the moment, so the first 2 photos on here are Robs.

Above picture is 'The Palms'. The man made islands of Dubai. I took lots of photos of this as we flew over so will update later with some more pictures of that...its' a pretty crazy place!

We went out on the creek for a bit of a cruise one night and some dinner, the last few photos are from that night.

Also went skiing at Ski Dubai of course, I did lots of shopping and just enjoyed having some time off work!

Red Sea Diving...

2008-11-12T23:02:00.000-08:00

The Diving in the Red Sea off the coast of Sharm/Dahab was awesome. Such great vis, and tonnes of different fish and coral and underwater treasures. (not real treasure).

So thought I would just put a couple more pics on...

We got this boat and went over to this island that is pretty close to Saudi, apparently still a few landmines on this island, so we stayed on the beach only. Had this wee beach to ourselves, spent an hour snorkelling, then on the way home a whole pod of dolphins cruised up next to the boat for quite a while. It was sooooo cool!

This pic is at the notorious Blue Hole. There was a rock wall with a LOT of memorial plaques up for people that had been killed while diving the blue hole. We hired a car and drove up here for a day as it's a bit off the beaten track.

Warm weather time! Egypt for May!

2008-11-12T22:30:00.000-08:00

So after leaving the ice after a 6 month stint, it was time to go and meet back up with Rob and get some warm weather! We spent about a week in NZ first, down in Queenstown, had some pretty sweet weather for that week too. Then it was back on the big bird and off to firstly Dubai to drop some gear off at Robs apartment, a quick nap and then off to Egypt.

Diving in the Red Sea, just Rob snorkelling here by the looks of it.

Diving in the red sea, off Sharm El Sheikh, Sinai Peninsula.

More diving..

Pyramids of Giza. Amazing.

Rob showing how small they really are..

We spent a few days in Cairo, checking out the sights and of course the pyramids.

Then we caught a bus over through the Sinai Peninsula, about 5 checkpoints later, a toilet that was on both Rob and my 'Top 5 worst toilets ever' list and 5 hours or so later we arrived at Sharm El Sheikh which is the area we stayed for the next couple of weeks, diving, windsurfing and generally having a well earned holiday! Rob had gone straight from the ice to the new job in Dubai within a couple of days as well.

So on the trip over to Sharm we passed a burnt out bus that had gone off the road. Not nice. Next thing we see on CNN a few hours later is a news report saying this accident had happened a few hours before we drove past. Quite a few foreigners killed and a lot injured. There was footage of tourists that had recently had amputations. Full on.

Buses going off that road seems to be a regular occurence. Another one about a week ago killed another dozen people. They just drive far too fast for the conditions. (like most places in the middle east).

So that was a bit of a sobering start to the holiday on the coast. We then had a few drinks and weren't so sober after that.

Took HEAPS of photos in Egypt, yet to go through them and select the best, one day, one day.

So just a couple of random ones on here, yet again.

Last extended season post...

2008-11-12T00:47:00.000-08:00

A couple more photos from the extended season. I do seem to have so many...

Not the best photo of an aurora, but I did see some all the same. Photos can't really begin to show how special it is to see this.
I went on a great mission with a few of the boys one Sunday. The only day off in the week, some great fun was had. Skidoos, powder and other toys that remain nameless. Good times! In the shadow of Mt Erebus and Mt Terror. Out on the iceshelf.

Another trip to what we named the pinnacles, part of the Pressure Ridges. Dan in action

Heading out to the pressure ridges, testing the thickness of ice in the meltpools.

Now I can't seem to find the photo that I took anywhere of the winter crew. Was quite a good one out the front of the base, drinking champagne to celebrate the end of summer and the beginning of winter.

After my 2 months down here it was time to leave, after a great night in the bar breaking in the new shotski that my workmate for the last 6 months - Dan, made for me it was time to depart.

The shotski will forever remain a part of my life and I hope to see many of the original shotski drinkers from that night drink from it on another occasion. I also hope my shotski that I lovingly made and kindly donated to the Scott Base bar is still in operation, and hasn't been banished to the upstairs area like so much other memorabilia from the past. Can someone let me know the fate of the shotski?

Working...

2008-11-12T00:28:00.000-08:00

During extended season it was also a job for Dan and I to go and check the recreation routes around the area, make sure the routes were well flagged and scope out any trips that we could do on the weekends. The highlight would have to be the Cape Crozier/Igloo Spur weekend trip that we did with 10 of the base staff. It was great to get the go ahead to do this trip after a hell of a lot of preparation and time involved in getting permission.(nice one Dan). I should probably put some photos on here of that trip.

One of the more local trips that is done is that of the climb up Castle Rock. Normally done in Summer. We thought we should go and check it out and see what the possibility of taking the rest of the crew up at the start of winter would be like. Proved to be a bit icier and committing than we thought. A great trip though, nice to get out and freeze your hands and toes, remind us where we are!

After we decided that it would probably be a bit sketchy to bring base staff up we started scoping it out for a possible SAR training day. However seem as Castle Rock was closed for recreation purposes and climbing in Winter it was figured the training would be better off elsewhere.

Freezing cold, but knowing a cup of tea and some of Chef Gorons chocolate caramel slice is only a couple of hours away means it's much easier to smile. Just after defrosting the eyelashes so able to blink again without getting eyelids stuck!

SAR Training Extended Season

2008-11-12T00:10:00.000-08:00

SAR Training was a big part of the extra 2 months I spent down on the Ice. It was pretty much a new team from the crew we had trained with over the summer season, as a lot of the Primary team had left and new members joined the Secondary Team. As of Feb 15th however the winter team was the only JASART team.

And so training began. We would train once or twice a week, indoor sessions and full days out on the ice, mainly training in Steep scree lowers/raises, Crevasse rescue, White-out training and GPS/Radar.

Below are a few pictures of the new training crevasse we scoped out.

Setting up for crevasse rescue scenarios

The Crevasse

I got first descent into the crevasse, it was very cool

Inside.

I didn't really get my camera out a hell of a lot on SAR Days. Firstly our packs were so full and we were carrying the stretcher, ropes and all the industrial gear as well as all our personal gear. Secondly we were too busy practicing saving lives to take photos. haha.

Bratina Island

2008-11-10T23:32:00.000-08:00

Bratina Island which sits at 78 degrees south was my home for a weekend. The research at Bratina Island is focused on the ponds of which there are over 100, looking at such things as the geochemistry, vertical stratification and sediment composition of these shallow meltwater ponds was my understanding of the research taking place out here.

This was the only science event that we had staying down and continuing work over the extended season, the team had 3 members, however before the last summer flight out one of this team pulled out and this is where I came in. I headed out to the island to spend the weekend with Karl and Ian, have a look at some of their safety and emergency systems they had in place and ensuring they would be able to continue their science with just the 2 of them. Which they were more than happy to do provided they could come back to the 'big city' of Scott base one more time to have a bit of a break!

They conveniently arrived in time for Blackjack night I remember!

I helped these guys with their work on the Friday and Saturday. The Sunday I got a bit of a treat and we went on a big walk to the end of the island where Ian showed me the sponges that get pushed up through the sea ice, mummified seals and all sorts of cool things!

Anyway, a couple of photos, again I took about 300!

Ian & Karl on the walk home. Frozen Pond, Bratina Island.

All these ponds had names of which Ian could name them all! I think the first time he came out to Bratina was working for NIWA back in maybe 1987? He had been to Antarctica about 30 times doing different research, including a lot of Antarctic Diving.

This photo was on the Sunday on our walk down to the end of the island and down to the dirty ice. Lots of cool things to see down there. This is some ice where the dirt has then been blown on top of it, in some cases things get pushed up through the ice to end up on the surface.

Frozen Bubbles. Bratina Island Pond.

This is very very cool. I had seen photos of this before and desperately wanted my own pictures and to see it. Bratina Island produced the goods. I spent a lot of time sitting on these frozen ponds trying to get good shots. Very cool.

The team heading back home after another day out on the ponds. These guys put in some pretty solid working hours, doing a 7 till 6 out in the field, followed by dinner and then work in the lab. We did have a special treat of an episode of Black Books on the Saturday night though! I decided I would cook breakfast, lunch and tea on the Sunday for them seem as then it would be a true 'day off'. I used the last of their pancake mix for breakfast that they had been trying to hold out on so it would last! Whoops, sorry! Luckily when they helicopter came to pick me up they brought some more out!

My home away from home away from home. My tent, away from Scott Base, away from NZ.

Extended Ice Season 2008

2008-11-10T22:57:00.000-08:00

So the call was made to extend the summer season on the ice this year until mid april. This would enable research to be undertaken in the months of March/April, when it normally finishes up in Feb. Normally this time of the year it's just the wintering over crew left down on the ice. Antarctica NZ had committed to keeping one more support person down on the ice over this time, someone that could be a member of the JASART (Joint Antarctic Search & Rescue team) and contribute to any response that may take place.

Over the hill at McMurdo(the American base) they were keeping close to 100 personnel on to support the science events that would be staying down. Helicopter pilots, engineers, radio comms, helotechs, chefs, science support, fuelies...the list goes on.

Scott Base kept 1 extra person, bringing the base population to 17. That was me!

So for the next 2 months I stayed on with a great bunch of crew that were the winter team.

It was an amazing time of year, as the sun started to go down over the horizon again, slowly a few hours of darkness crept in each day, and by the time I left in April there was only about 5 hours of daylight left. This meant more photos had to be taken of course!

I was stoked that I saw the Southern Lights (Aurora Australis) on a number of occasions before I left. What an amazing sight this is, and something that will forever be one of the coolest things I have seen.

My mate Candy who worked in Mac Ops centre at McMurdo was on the night shift over this time, so without fail if she spotted an Aurora on her night watch, the pager would go off and up I would get! 3am for about a week was my standard wake up call! Thanks Candy!

Anyway enough writing, here's a few pictures...

Memorial Cross for some of Robert Falcon Scotts expedition party. Next to Discovery Hut. Hut Point

So nice to see some different colours after the 6 months of white, and white. Oh, and some different blues, and greys of the sky!

Earth Hour @ Scott Base. Great to see some darkness!

Dan during a Castle Rock winter ascent. -20degrees celsius. A warm day.

Goron the winter chef. Such an amazing chef, primo food 24-7.

This was on Winter Antarctic Field Training, head out for a couple of days and go over survival techniques again, this was how we decided to cook for our meals, instead of good old Backcountry cuisine Chef Dan turned it on with massive steak burgers that would rival Fergburger in Qt!! Except the lettuce would freeze and snap as soon as it came out of the warmth!

Scott Base from the road above.

Mt Erebus

2008-11-10T22:07:00.000-08:00

Mount Erebus was another mountain I always wanted to step foot on. Standing at 3794m tall and the worlds southernmost active volcano this mountain is on the doorstep of Scott Base. It does look very close to SB however is still well over 80km away. Sadly Mt Erebus is very well known after the tragic events of Flight TE901 on 28 November 1979 which killed all 237 passengers and 20 crewmembers on board.

A lot of scientific research is conducted on Mt Erebus throughout the summer season, off the top of my head this includes monitoring and interpretation of seismic and seismoacoustic activity in the volcano through the use of a network of highly-sensitive broad-band seismometers.

Anyway the opportunity came about to go up onto Erebus for a brief moment to drop off some scientists and their equipment at the acclimatisation camp. Everyone that is going to be on the mtn for a period of time has to spend a couple of days here before going up to the main camp where the majority of research is undertaken from. We then flew up to the this camp to pick up some others and all their equipment. Because I went along as the 'helotech' it meant we didn't need to shut down the machine.

A few pictures below.

Mt Erebus taken from the pressure ridges outside Scott Base.

On the way home

Shadow of HNO and fumaroles on the side of Erebus

Loading the machine at 12,000 ft.

The altitude is actually quite noticeable when flying directly from sea level within 15minutes.

The machines all have O2 in them for this reason. The old headache kicked in pretty quick.

Side of Mt Erebus, nice big crevasses

Dry Valleys 2008

2008-11-10T00:33:00.000-08:00

2008 Season I had to go and do an environmental audit on a science event that were operating in the Dry Valleys of Antarctica. Another science event that we headed over there with were checking up on some of their weather stations, so I was lucky in that we flew to a couple of different locations. Again I must have over 1000 photos in the Dry Valleys from the past 2 seasons, these are just a couple from that particular trip.

The Wright, Taylor and Victoria Valleys seem to be the main areas that the science work is conducted in the Dry Valleys area. At the head of the valley in this picture you can see the VXE - 6 Icefalls. I have a closer up picture of these in my first post on this site, so probably under 'older posts' on this site.

Victoria Valley, glacier and glacial lake.

Victoria Valley mountains and HNO flying over

More awesome glaciers, dry valleys

Victoria Valley

Cape Bird 2008

2008-11-10T00:04:00.000-08:00

Cape Bird, Ross Island, Antarctica was always on my list of places that I really wanted to get to. In 2008 it was on the work list for the Cape Bird hut that a helicopter pad needed constructing, so I finally managed to get up there. Due to the 24hours of daylight it meant that we had one very long day so that we could paint the hut, construct the pad and get all the other jobs on our list done, as well as go for a walk and take a few pics. Worth staying up half the night for though.

Lone penguin @ Cape Bird

This was taken about 1am in the morning I think! Went for a walk down the beach. Took a lot of photos on this trip, haven't had a chance to go through, sort them and pick out the better ones yet, so this is just a random pick of a few.

Bergs floating past.

3 Amigos.

Cape Bird Hut with some 'ominous' looking clouds over the mainland

HNO leaving after dropping us off

Cambodia 2007

2008-11-09T23:22:00.000-08:00

Cambodia was a great wee trip between the winter season in NZ and heading down to the Ice for another stint. We flew into Phnom Penh and spent a couple of days here, watching the sun go down and the traffic from the balcony of the FCC! Then it was time to check out Southern Cambodia, we caught a bus down to Sihanoukville and had a great week sampling the local beaches, boat trips taking us diving and up rivers in the middle of nowhere to check out villages, deserted beaches and jungles.

Somewhere in Southern Cambodia

This was where we ended up after spending an hour on a secluded beach on an island at the end of a 1hr boat trip up a river somewhere! We then followed our guide through the jungle, getting to know the biting ants for an hour, passing water buffalos, a small village, a few curious locals and ended up back where our boat picked us up for the return journey!

Beautiful Sokha Beach, Sihanoukville, Cambodia.

"You buy now, cheap price for you"

The two big beers, cocktail, 2 substantial delicious meals all for about $10 makes it worth putting up with the haggling from local kids! And watching the sun go down with a beer in hand from the comfort of a nice chair on the beach. Can't go wrong really!

Secret Russian Island. Can't tell you exact location.

This crazy island off the Southern Coast somewhere is owned by Russians. We passed it on the way to go diving. Can't just turn up there and can't go within a certain distance. Shame we didn't have the big zoom on the camera, could have looked in the windows and busted all the dodgy dealings going on! This is taken with the small camera, still managed to zoom in a wee way!

Jungle Trek in Cambodia. In Jandals.

Luckily Rob had drunk enough beer on his stint in Burma that he got a free 'tiger' fan.

Came in handy on the jungle journey, that's for sure! Stinking hot of course, especially seem as it was my only week of above 10 degrees celsius for an 11 month period! Got some classic vid footage of the biting ants. Shall upload after getting consent!

Winter 2007

2008-11-09T22:50:00.000-08:00

Another season ski patrolling.

Fun winter, left in September for a bit of warmth in Cambodia before heading back to the Ice again. Some good trips throughout the season. The best one probably would have to be the ski off Ben Lomond with Pete, amazingly good snow and a fun hike out! Photos must be on home computer. Will upload one day. Or just repeat the trip. Great crew to work with yet again making it a big factor in the decision to continue to do season after season of ski patrol.

How many patrollers does it take for RTD? training on a spring day

Ohau Trip. An awesome weekend away with a good crew, bluebird day with fresh pow. Lot's of hiking and fresh lines. Toshi has made a video of the trip. On youtube with Toshis vast collection of quality vid. Shame the fish and chips in Omarama had a major overdose of salt. Apart from that a brilliant weekend, oh, and apart from Petes crash of the season. Wrecked ski and helmet, and maybe a broken pole?

Thanks Tarn for hooking us up. Retro day. Patrol got exclusive use of the old Southern Lakes Heliski Guides one pieces. A classic piece of history that we all wore with pride. They actually made us ski better. As the revolver series of winter videos showed!

Ka Pai, Back Bowls, The Peak.

Getting fresh lines nice and early in the morning before the public show up. No, we wouldn't do that, just doing some "Avalanche Control". Great team bonding morning. Lushy the man of the moment in the picture.

I guess this is a historic photo, Jules, Lush and I, Express Top, Coronet. Jules last season due to an offer of a high paying, job of extreme power in the Queenstown Lakes District Area. Lushy to go and cater for the rich and famous on luxury yachts around the world with Tash, and I went back to my roots at Remarks the following season after 4 seasons patrolling at the peak.

Routeburn Track. April 2007

2008-11-09T22:36:00.000-08:00

A short stint guiding and lodge managing on the Routeburn Track after returning from Antarctica 2007.

Couple of photos of a nice, early April snowfall. Yee haa.

Gili Islands, Lombok, Bali. Indonesia 2007

2008-11-09T03:38:00.000-08:00

Month of May = Indonesia. A 1 hour flight from Denpasar, Bali takes you to the Island of Lombok. Land of many Muslims and good surfing. We however then drove to the opposite side of the island and a couple of hours later jumped on board a high speed boat to the Gili Islands. Gili Trawangan was where we spent the next week or so diving. This was the first diving I had done, was lucky enough to see sharks, turtles, and another 100 different fish that I won't name individually. My favourite of course being Nemo. Hence why he gets 2 photos in the blog out of a selection of hundreds yet again. May even try and get some video on here at some stage too as with the newly purchased underwater housing we have some world class footage. I think National Geographic has sent it back.

Diving Meno Wall. Gili T. Indonesia

Dive Boat, Gili Trawangan

Janatuliwah, Bali is supposed to have amazing rice paddies. I really wanted to see them and take some photos. We had hired a little suzuki that was incredibly gutless. (found this out when I stalled midway up Bali's steepest street with a rather large truck coming down the other way). Quite possibly the most stressful attempted hill start I will ever have to endure in my life. Attempted because I couldn't get the piece of shit to gain any momentum! After 4 failed attempts and a growing number of spectators I backed it down the hill, handed the drivers seat over to Rob, where we went with a different technique of flying down the opposite hill to get enough speed to reach the other side. This was only the start of trying to find the 'amazing rice paddies'. After trying to do the standard "try to read the road maps in a foreign country" game we settled for these rice paddies. I think after all of that, it may have been where we were looking for.

Nemo fish playing in the Anemones. My favourites. Must credit these pictures to Rob I believe.

2008-11-08T01:37:00.000-08:00

Burma 2007

Still not sure how I am going to sort this whole blog thing out. Once I catch up on a bit of the last year or so of travels, etc then I might be able to stay a bit more up to date on the whole thing! Here's a couple more pictures of Burma anyway.

Mount Popa, Mandalay province.

This place was a 3hr 'taxi', aka 'local wannabe rally driver' ride away from where we were staying back in Bagan.

Climbed up to the top where we had views back down one side over the town below and stretching out across the dry landscape in the opposite direction. Monkey Central on the way up, good idea to lose the bananas!

Contrary to popular belief from those that have seen this photo, it actually meant "Do not take photo inside". This was quite a discovery for us, off the beaten track, amazing historic paintings and art work on the walls inside.

Shwedagon Pagoda, Yangon, Myanmar

This amazing gold structure is in the heart of the capital. Yangon. Also known as Rangoon. The capital city has officially been moved further north in the country however. Long story behind that one. Spectacular Pagoda.

Have quite a few other photos of our new mate Randilaney. He followed us around this secluded temple we found for quite a while, we watched another spectacular sunset from here and proceeded to take another couple of hundred photos each. Okay, yes I did make that name up. Name of local Burmese man unknown. But a great guy. There was a Swedish guy also at this temple who had a fancy flash camera and tried making Randilaney pose so his picture would be I guess more what "Sven" was after.(also name made up). "Please cross your legs like this", etc. Quite ridiculous. Didn't even say Thanks afterwards, so I think Randilaney enjoyed our company when we took photos of us with him, showed him the photos on our camera, then gave him a couple of dollars which probably fed his family for a week.

"It's the small things".
Again it was then time to get on our bikes and endeavour to find our way back home along the dirt dusty roads. No shortage of locals following us and trying to help. Another great day in Burma.

Myanmar (Burma) February 2007.

2008-10-02T03:25:00.000-07:00

Myanmar 2007 was an awesome trip.

Temples of Bagan, Myanmar

A few weeks in this country changes your perspective on a lot of things. I guess similar to many many countries out there. Myanmar has recently had even tougher times after the recent natural disaster. There is a lot of debate over whether foreigners should be going in to Myanmar with the military regime the way it is. We went. I'm pleased that we did. There just isn't any way around a proportion of your $ going to the government, however there are plenty of ways you can ensure as much of your $ as possible is going to those much more in need. This has got to be better than nothing.

Testing The Water....

2008-09-29T22:59:00.000-07:00

Righto, let's try this blogging game...

Adele Penguin, Cape Bird

Mount Erebus crevasses

VXE - 6 Icefalls

Seals @ Cape Roberts

So.. just testing out this blog business, seeing if it's going to work for me!! Couple of the 15000 photos of Antarctica I've taken since '06. The plan is to sort through them all when I have some downtime... (maybe 2050) and make an Antarctic book. Hopefully I should be able to scrape together some decent pics for that. Heading to Dubai in December which hopefully means a chance to get the photos organised...watch this space.

Ross Sea, Antarctica

Wright Valley, Dry Valleys, Antarctica