Marama Farm

I know it's been a while since I've updated this, but here is what I'm up to. I arrived in Christchurch back on the 15th and found out that I was going to be staying at the YMCA. I finally had my own room. I even had a great balcony that looked out over the city. It was a little rainy out so my friend Megan and I made a few road trips to find the sun. I did find it, but it wasn't as warm as we were hoping. I spent about 5 days in Christchurch sleeping on floors and going out at night with friends. Every couple days a new wave of people came off the ice and it was exciting to see everyone again.

At first I thought WWOOFing was going to be easy. I emailed a couple places but didn't get a response. Then I realized finding a farm was going to be a challenge so I emailed 7-8 places. The next day I had a farm lined up and everything was good. I arranged a couch to surf on in Timaru for the night before and was going to hitch down. Well, the next day that farm fell through but another person offered me a place. I tried calling them a few times but was unable to talk to the person in charge. Finally the next day I had an email indicating that the second farm had fallen through. I was not having a lucky go of this. I emailed another 7-10 farms the next day hoping one of them may come through. On Tuesday I received an email from Graham Clarke indicating hew as interested in my Antarctic travels but that he already had 3 WWOOFers. By that night, he had emailed me telling me to come anyway. The next morning I caught the bus out of town at 6:30 and thumbed my way down to Waipahi. By bus this would have taken 9 hours but with my good old trusty thumb it only took 8.5hrs. I had a little trouble getting through Dunedin but a very nice guy saw me and gave me a ride out of town where I was quickly picked up. The longest I waited for a ride (besides my walk through Dunedin) was about 15 min. I also managed to do this huge trek with only 4 rides.

So now I am on my WWOOFing adventure. At the farm there was already a German couple and another American. They are hard workers and fun to be around. I was told there would be 4-6 hours of work a day but that has now turned into 8-14. I would complain, but the boss is now out of town, and I'll be headed out next week to the next farm. On the farm there is 6000 Ewes, 2000 Lambs, and a few cattle. Work includes mending fences, crutching sheep (wiping their bums), herding sheep, picking up dead sheep, and cooking meals.
We do have some fun moments like when Graham took us to the Moonshine festival. I tried moonshine hokey-poky ice cream and it was great. We also went to a little cafe one day for lunch. The farm hand (also named Graham) is from England and his family took us all fishing one night. I caught the only fish which was a flounder type fish. The funny part of it is that I caught it with my hands in a little pond next to the river.
Since Boss Graham is away this week, we invited Neighbor Graham and his family over for dinner. It was a great feed with a bunch of great people. The WWOOFers all chipped in some cash for the food.

I don't know where I'm headed to next, but I hope to find a farm somewhere on the West Coast of the South Island. I don't know exactly when I'm headed back to the States, but right now I'm thinking it will most likely be the middle of April. I don't have a summer job yet and still don't have a job lined up for the ice next year. All of this is starting to stress me out a little, but I'm sure in the end everything will work out. If anyone has any good ideas for me for summer work, please add it to the comments.

Good Night

Hello blog readers. I just wanted to thank all the great people including my family, friends, and the people at Stryker for supporting me in this inspiring adventure. This has truly been the greatest "day" of my life.

I am now back in Christchurch NZ and am ready to start my next adventure. I have seen the sunset for the first time in 5+ months and I am happy to see stars once again. The first star I saw I wished that tomorrow will be as great as today (the past 5 mo.). I hope to continue the blog as I travel as I hope my life continues to stay interesting. I hope you will join me as I embark on a new set of adventures.

Once agian, thank you and good night.

Reflections

The past year has been one of many changes. I would be lying if I told you that at no point did I think I was making a mistake. I regularly challenged my decisions and wondered if I was making the right choice. I can now look back and see I made the right choice but that doesn't make it any less scary. I have realized now that I must take chances and step into the unknown in order to find adventure and happiness. I would now like to share with you all some of the highlights of my season.

Although it was sad to leave the O'Brien family, I can say it was a great joy to spend 1.5 months living with two cute kids and two parents that care deeply about them. This was one of the best highlights of the past year.

Not much can top the feeling of stepping onto the ice for the first time. I wonder if next year I'll get as excited when I see the back of plane open and feel the rush of cold air hit my face?

Making new friends is always a good thing. Eric and Megan are two great friends that I will miss after this season. Megan and I are going to travel a little bit together when I get back to Chch.Halloween, I didn't find my icewife but I realize that is not what is important. I found some of the best friends anyone could hope for. The drunkenness of the evening was shared by all.
WAIS divide was another magical moment. Stepping off a plane into a camp of nothingness only to leave two weeks later with a small town assembled. What a feeling of accomplishment. Here I experienced white out conditions, heavy winds, and more shoveling than I ever care to do again.I think the Turkey Trot changed my attitude. I haven't run in 5+ years but doing this race didn't bother my knees at all. I finished in ~30th place which won me a shirt. Thanksgiving was a great time.I've always liked snowmobiling, but doing it on the sea ice in Antarctica adds a little something extra you don't get in VT. I already miss the days when the sea ice was open for travel and we were regularly assigned to off station activities. We can't forget about swimming! What a great rush and accomplishment. This is one of the activities that in another 10-15 years I'll be sitting in a bar with friends and I'll get to whip this story out and awe them all. Operation Tiger Strike, our trip to AGAP. Altitude, cold, and remoteness added a touch of danger to this mission. I'm glad I got a chance to do it and will always be grateful I came back in coach not cargo.Xmas was a fun time of year. Each department made a decoration to add to the party at the VMF (Vehicle Maintenance Facility). They included a striper pole from the waste barn and this reindeer with "rocks" from shuttles. Each party on the ice was filled with laughter, food, and fun. I'll never forget the two weeks of my life where the world literally revolved around me. More great people and interesting sights (ice tunnels, the dome, new station, Jamesways...)The tour of the Oden was a lot of fun and now I really want to get a job working on a boat! This was also the first time it became a reality that the area out in front of the station really was ocean.More good friends. I know I'll never forget these two clowns. We had many fun moments together including many Red Sox vs Yankees debates and trying to figure out how old Terry was. The best was the time I was harassing Betty and the guy she was working with looks at her and said "I don't think he likes your hat." (it was a Yankees hat).Tanker offload was another fun time filled with new faces and job possibilities for next year. Plus it meant I got to see more boats.Lastly there was Vessel Offload. This was not a fun time. For the first time since arriving in Antarctica I was truly cold. I also was now ready to leave. As the song goes, "24 hours to go" and I'll be off the ice until next year. It has really been an awesome adventure and I highly recommend it to everyone (Wanda, Diddy). I must now go finish packing up my room and say my goodbyes. Once again I must step into the unknown but I know a new adventure awaits.

M/V American Tern

For the past four days I've been helping with ship offload. This is the time of year that we get all our food and supplies that will be used next year. My job for this has been as Pier Announcer and Hatch Checker. Besides a couple equipment operators on the pier, I am the only American civilian there. The rest of the people are either Kiwi cargo handlers or US NAVCHAPS (part of the Navy). The Pier by the way (the dirt part you see up against the ship) is actually a big chunk of ice covered in dirt. So, all containers are loaded onto trucks that are driving on this "ice pier" that is just floating their. The trucks then drive over the bridge and onto solid ground.

As a Pier Announcer, my task was to identify each container as it come off one of the three cranes and was loaded onto a flatbed truck. I then look up the container number, find out how much it weighs, and where it is going. From here, I announce the information on the radio so people around town know what is headed where. The weight is important, because some containers require cranes or heavy duty forklifts to pick them off the truck. Most of the containers are about 20-30,000lbs but some as heavy as 65,000lbs.

I saw some cool things come off including some new Challenger snow cats. Most of the time it was just Milvans (the orange containers you see in most of the pictures).

Since I am the RSPC contact person on the pier, I've gotten to meet a ton of people. I love the Kiwis. Two of the great people I've met include Vince on the left and John on the right. Vince is from Auckland and is normally a police officer at the airport. John works in a town just north of Wellington and does logistics work. Both of them are very nice guys and have given me their contact information incase I need a place to stay while on the North Island.

After the ship is offloaded, it's time to put all the milvans from last year back on the ship. A lot of them are empty, but some of them have our waste or other items being returned to the states. My task here is to watch the hatches from onboard the ship and record what containers go where. This task can be difficult. More or less we have a ~20 page three dementional map of the ship and each container location has an individual number. I would explain the rest of it, but it would take way to long and I'm sure no one really cares. Today we got things all messed up and I had to stay late (past the 12 hr shift) to try and sort everything out.

Up until now, I have really loved Antarctica, and have rarely complained or even wanted to leave. However, the past 4 days have been so cold that I can't wait to see the green grass of Christchurch. We have gone through about 4 cases of hand warmers that don't even come close to fighting the effects of the cold. I'm suprised I still have all my toes and that chunks of my face haven't turned black. Every night I take a hot shower and just stand there until feeling comes back to my hands and feet. The joys of the warm sand on the beaches of NZ will be the best reward! Ship offload has given a whole new definition to the meaning of COLD

Happy Birthday Old Man

Well I wanted to wish my Old Man (Big Skip) a happy birthday but due to vessel offload I did not have a long enough lunch break to make the call. I tried to email my wishes back to FL but that got kicked back by the firewall. So, this was the best way I could think of to wish the Old Man well.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

You are a great Dad and I appreciate all the help you have given me over the years and especially in the past 12 months! Thank you.

What's Next?

I'm sure many of you would like to know what is next on my journey through life. I don't know if I can really answer that, but I can share with you some of my thoughts, dreams and ideas for the next year. Before I get too far on this remember how far I came in the past 12 months (finished my MBA, sold my home, quit a job I worked for almost 5 years, came to Antarctica to shovel snow, worked at the South Pole for two weeks...). I am not ready to give up my adventure just yet!

It is not definite yet, but it looks like I will be leaving shortly after we are done offloading all our cargo from the ship which is planned for the 15th Feb. When I arrive in NZ I'm not sure what exactly I'll be doing, but here is a punch list:

• Couch surfing
• WWOOFing around the south island
• Hitchhiking
• Taking a Paragliding course
• Caving
• Tramping aka backpacking
• Meeting new people and enjoying adventures with old
• Making it back to the states around May
• Hopefully I'll get a summer job as a wild land firefighter out west somewhere
• Get back to the ice sometime between Aug and Oct

For the longest time (since I was a freshman at Alaska Pacific University), I have wanted to go paragliding. NZ is famous for paragliding and I plan on dropping the cash to take the course. I don't really want to spend that much money, but as my friend Brody put it, I "didn't come here for the money, but for the adventure." The cheapest school (may not be the best selective factor) is on the North Island. I was going to take the inter-island ferry up but found out it cost $72nz for a one way ticket. I looked up air travel and from CHCH I can fly to Wellington on the North Island for $27nz (~$20.75us). So as a no-brainer, I bought the ticket and hopefully the plan follows through.

I am not going to rent a car in NZ since I won't have that kind of money. I could buy a cheap car and sell it for the same price when I leave, but then I would have to insure and register it. So I am going to travel by thumb. I did it a bunch in AK and apparently NZ is very hitchiker friendly.

Besides going paragliding, I want to travel around the South Island and see some of the towns. For this I've decided I will go WWOOFing. WWOOFing stands for Willing Workers On Organic Farms (aka World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms). I paid the $40nz for the "passport" that lists 1000+ farms around the country. All I have to do is email or call a farm and see if they have openings. If they do I show up and for 4-6hrs of daily work, I will get free room and board. I have gone through the book and found cool places like, micro brewery, vineyard, mud brick factory, deer farm, little place on an island and many others. Sounds like a good cheap way to travel.

As for couch surfing, this is a great thing my friend "Hitch Hiker Ben" taught me about. After going online, I was able to create a profile that is entered into a database. When going to a new town, I look up the city on the web page and it gives me a list of available couches. I email the people until I find someone willing to give me a couch. I then have a free place to stay for a night or two. I know, many of you think this is crazy (Dad, Grama), but it's all part of the adventure and it isn't as sketchy as it sounds.

Since NZ is so beautiful, I couldn't possibly leave without making a trek into the backcountry. I'm hoping to do 2-3 backpacking trips. So far I only know one that is a must and it is a four day costal hike. For $45nz, I'll take a boat taxi out to the start of the tramp. I'll then spend four wonderful days walking on the beach and on small hills along the shore. It will be nice to have my feet in the warm sand. While tramping, I'm thinking I'll pick up a fishing license and do a little world class trout fishing. NZ in home to some of the biggest browns.

After playing in NZ for a little while, I will make my way back home to good old VT. I hope to spend a week or so there and visit friends and family. I even hope to make it down to the "Upper Valley." After this I will go see my cute niece Ella before heading West to some place where I hope to get a fire fighting job. I've applied all over Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Washington, and Oregon. I hope one of them turns up something or I'll just have to resort to playing the guitar on the street for pocket change (joke). I know that adventure is back in my blood and I feel like I did when I lived in AK. There are a lot of cool places out there and I want to see them all after living and working in the "coolest" (little pun).

Welcome to McMurdo

I thought that since I'm going to be leaving here in a short while, it would be worth giving everyone a quick tour of my town. You will notice that there are a lot of similarities from this town to other towns but that there are also many differences. One of the most interesting differences that I have found is that main doors to the buildings open in. This may not sound odd, but next time you are out, pay attention to all the doors you go through. For fire reasons, doors in public buildings must open out however here in Antarctica they open in. Why is this? Well in a short period of time (over night) snow can easily drift in and quickly block a door creating a bigger hazard. To eliminate this risk, all doors open in. To prove this point, when I was at WAIS, a UT was sleeping in a Jamesway and couldn't get out in the morning because the door opened out. He had to wait until people noticed he was missing and go shovel him out.

I'll start with the "Chapel of the Snows." This is our chapel. Although I don't go to church every week, I do go semi regularly. This past week during mass the Palmer was coming into the turning basin and we were all watching it out the window behind the alter. This building is also used for GA morning stretching, yoga, AA, "quiet time", and bible study. It has burned down 2 times since 1956.

This is the McM coffee house. Currently it is condemned but we were told it will open again next year. This is where I did open mic night and saw many good performers. It was a fun place we could have a glass of wine, visit with friends, and play board games.

Welcome to the McMurdo General Hospital. I've only been twice, once for a flu shot and again for altitude meds.

Right next door to the Hospital is the Fire Station. Each airfield also has a fire station. The response time for in town calls is at 3min. Not bad when most towns is 10-15min. The hardest part here is not letting the water freeze.

The BFC. I've spent many days working here as a GA. They are a great crew and they have a fun job. The best comparison is that the BFC is like Eastern Mountain Sports. This is where we check out sleeping bags, tents, survival bags...

What town would be complete without a NASA Lunar Habitat? This was just set up in the MEC parking lot a couple weeks ago. I'm guessing it's a test for the moon?

Most towns have a parking lot but do they look like this? When we need a vehicle, we sign it out at the MEC. It's hard to tell, but there are power cords going down between the Pisten Bullys and Tuckers so we can plug them in.Government! Each town has a government and McM is no exception. This is the NSF Chalet. My friend Cindy works in this building. I don't know what to compare this to, but some towns do have some form of industry. In McM it's science and this is where the "beakers" (Scientists) work. Known as the Crary Lab on Beaker street, it is three levels that stretch almost to the beach. They have an aquarium, offices, labs...

The McM Gas Station. We have two choices, Mogas or Diesel. One major difference is that we don't pay at the pump. Actually, we don't pay at all. If your vehicle is less than 3/4 full you fill it up. We also use a grounding clamp when fueling Mogas to eliminate static charges.

Our Post Office. It was closed when I took the picture. We also have a mail room where we receive our mail. Each time mail comes in, a list is published on who has mail. This allows us to know when to go to the mail room.

Our flight terminal. We don't have metal detectors, drug sniffing dogs, or X-Ray machines but we do have a scale. When we go to fly somewhere, we check in the night before at "bag drag." They weigh all our checked baggage then have us get on the scale with our carry on. This lets them know how much fuel to bring. The next day they bring us from here to whichever airfield we are flying from.

The Scales are like what the DOT uses at rest stops. These trucks are finding out how much their loads (millvans) weigh so they can be loaded onto the cargo ship to be returned to the states.

The Carp Shop. Two buildings connected together full of power tools and educated craftsmen. In the distance is the flush-a-way. The carp shop doesn't have running water so they go out to the flush-a-way to "powder their noses." The carp shop has a great view of the bay and has some of the best parties in town.Trash. Since everything gets recycled, we must sort our own trash. Kim here is going through the trash can from her office and separating out all the different materials.

Every town has a bank, and this is ours. I guess there isn't anything too exciting about an ATM. At Pole they don't have an ATM so if they need cash they need to have it pulled from their pay.

The Skua shack. So the Skua is a bird but it is a bird with a great talent. This talent is scavenging for anything of use (most of the time food). We use the term in honor of the bird. This shack is like the thrift store where you can get almost anything you could dream of. This season I skua'd a tent, food, shoes, jacket, pictures, Christmas presents for my roommates... What a great culture, if you have something you don't need, give it to someone else.

Only Two weeks left!