The trip to the pole necessarily heads through New Zealand. You fly commercially all the way to Christchurch while you await the specialized planes to the continent. On the way down you’ll get somewhere between 1 and 10 days to look around the city – they try and keep it fast, but there is often weather or other unavoidable issues. When there is not a global pandemic, you can use this time to see the last bit of green for quite some time. Fortunately, Christchurch is a lovely city and even has a botanical garden.

On our way down, we were “fortunate” enough to be delayed for 3 days and know it. Typically, you wake up at ~6 each day, head toward the CDC (not THAT CDC) and await the proclamation that the weather is good or bad. If it fails, then you are usually free to roam about the city for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, that usually means starting around noon. So being told that we had three free days was an enormous boon. We spent one of them heading to Akaroa, which I will talk about in a later post, but I spent the rest looking around the city.

The grass and the trees were a great memory and an important thing to look back on while at the pole, but there was also the art museum.

I don’t have pictures of all the food, but there was a nice market and a good selection of dining around. Our head chef recommended a local burger chain, and there are good cafes. But once all of that is done, you go back to the CDC, get your gear issued and fly out. The CDC is near the Antarctic museum, which is fun

They warn you about it, but your ECW really does add to the weight, and they are quite strict on baggage requirements when heading to the pole.

This is about the last thing you see before you get on the plane and head south. Or are turned back once again… Thankfully you aren’t too far from a grocery store and a taco place if they need you to wait on site. The gear distribution place is also where you drop you gear when you “redeploy” (land back in New Zealand).