ROOKIE - sunday 14 october

Weather: -10.c, -30 wind chill

Sunday morning sleep in, then off to a church service at 11am. The chapel here is called "chapel of the snows" and it sits super cute in a prime viewing spot out to the ice field.

At noon my shift started. We spent the day training, and ran an exercise drill out of 155 (the dorm i'm staying in). It was a great day and i learnt some new things. The terminology is VERY different here for all the firefighting equipment and even more confusing (this is for the kiwi firefighters) is that in america the male connection of the hose or "attack line" fights the fire whereas back home it's the female - meaning that the connections are all different at the hydrant etc... have to be one step ahead of the game for that one!
Here's a couple more;
(kiwi) dividing breeching (usa) gated Y
(kiwi) collective (usa) simease
(kiwi) hose (usa) attack line
(kiwi) tools (usa) irons
(kiwi) outlets (usa) discharge
(kiwi) truck (usa) engine
and then of course we work on the metric system! phew my brains getting a hammering! i feel like a rookie again! I heard a few laughs the first time i jumped out the truck to be a guide for a guy reversing, i did wonder why he wasn't looking at me out the side mirror. I thought "man this guy's good" then realised i was on the officers/passengers side of the truck! i forgot the driver is on the left here!

Actually i had driver training the other day out on the ice runway, there were 3 vehicles in action, two coming towards me, i noticed they had stopped as seemed to be laughing inside the vehicle. Then i realised i was driving down the left hand side of the road. "crazy kiwi"

DINNER AT SCOTT BASE - 13 saturday october

Weather: -13.c, wind chill -30.c

Two of my american firey mates Dave and Heath, and I ran over to Scott Base today. It was -23.c out today and i tell you what, it's only 3km from McMurdo to Scott but it felt like i was running a marathon! The cold air absolutely whips your lungs, but i loved it! I'll definietely get into that more, especially as the weather will be warming up soon.

I met up with a bunch of folk at Scott base that i'd met the other day. They invited us in for a cup of tea to warm up, what a blast sitting down enjoying a milo (i really miss milo!) in their fire lite lounge which over-looks the pressure ridges of the ice field.

We had a couple of speights in the bar, and were invited to stay for dinner. Yum Yum and more YUM, i'd been told that if you ever get an invite to dinner at Scott base, you NEVER EVER turn it down - and now i see why. Don't get me wrong, dinner at Mctown is awesome - but they are feeding 1100 mouths so the food can be a little bland, plus it has been in storage here for awhile. Whilst at Scott, only having 40ish people at the moment, it's all super fresh! fresh tomatoes, lettuce, avagardo (and i'm not even a great fan of avagardo at home but man did it taste good).

Fantastic!

That night we hit gallagers, which many of the kiwi's came over for. Four bands were playing - made up of d.a's, scientist, ganitors, firey's - all sorts of McTown residents. It was packed! it was like walking into a busy bar on courtney place back home. AWESOME!

TOUCHING A C-17 - friday 12 october

Well fortunately i've been given a kelly day today. Every two weeks you have a day off where the rest of your shift mates go to work, thus giving you 3 consecutive days off.

Except i got called back in because we were short staffed. No worries, i get every second day off anyway! I had a blast. I was stationed out at the ice runway and managed to get a video of a c-17 taking off right from the hold short line (right up on the runway) it felt like i could touch it! i was that close - hopefully i can get it up on this blog!

After dinner i was cleared off duty and a bunch of guys from A shift grabbed me and took me to gallagers, which is one of the pubs here. It was nice to catch up with A shift as working 24hrs on 24 off we don't get to hang out too often.

INDOOR SOCCER - thursday 11th oct

Weather: -18.c, wind chill -40.c

Another day off in paradise!

Today i caught up on a bunch of emailing and computer stuff. I took a walk around Mctown and did a famil of all the buildings - man there are millions of them!

Evening came around quickly, time-wise not light-wise! and i was off to the indoor gym to play soccer. It was a lot of fun, i was the only girl playing but that didn't matter - and hey i even scored a goal!

CONDITION 2

Weather: -17.c, wind chill -38.c

I woke up this morning out at station two to condition 2 weather. The weather here is messured on three different scales, condition 3 is a fine day, condition 2 is low visibility, and wind and condition 1 is very bad visibility and wind exceeding 55 knots. If the weather is condition 2 and more bad weather is forecasted, you have 20 minutes to move yourself back to mcmurdo base otherwise if it turns into condition 1 it's hammer down the hatches and stay where you are. No one is allowed to be outside in condition 1.

I had a lot of fun staying out at station 2, i took a bunch of photos and midnight looking back into mcmurdo. The light is very dim here in the evening. The last sunset is October 23, which will mean the sun from then will continue to stay above the horizon.

This evening a bunch of us were preparing to go to Scott Base, as thursday night is american night (an invitation to visit scott base bar) but unfortunately due to the weather (being condition 2) no recreational travel was allowed......but no worries i was just eexcited to play indoor soccer instead. We had about 8 players and it was a huge lot of fun, i even scored a goal!

Kareoke (or however you spell that word!) was calling at the bar, and my roomy keri dedicated a song to me! brilliant. Tonight i had my first speight, well actually first beer! since arriving last friday.

Chris and i headed out around midnight to take some photos of the sunset and the narcuis clouds.

SLEEPING ON THE ICE RUNWAY

The good ol' kiwi c-130 airforce plane broke their number one engine yesterday, so 3 of us keen firefighters slept out at station two last night to man the runway/plane. What a blast! Actually i witnessed the engine blow, as i was filming there take off, fortunately i was when they were reving up full power before takeoff.

So our fate had fallen and LT Brag, heiff and I were there for the night. Anytime there is a plane on the apron there must be a crew out on the runway. The camera came out, and i shot some nice pictures around midnight - the ice runway looks back on McMurdo.

Tonight is American night at Scott Base, actually I was just this second talking to Harley (who's the kiwi barman) he's here at mctown to get supplies. I told him t gear up!

OUT TO EXPLORE

Weather: -22.c, wind chill -36.c

I woke up this morning at the firehouse to a pearler of a day. Blue Sky, bright white snow, no clouds and no wind. Time to head out for a play!

Chippy, my kiwi partner in crime (dave palmer - the other kiwi nz firefighter) and i hit the tracks over to Scott Base, the New Zealand station down here on the ice. It's only about 3km away from McMurdo base. What a blast! It was awesome meeting up with some other kiwi folk, and they gave us a cool tour of the base. It was funny hearing the kiwi accent after being surrounded by all americans, i pondered in my head "wow do i really sound that bad!"

Actually here's something funny..... I was in the gift shop at Scott Base talking to someone i'd just met when someone else in there heard me talking and came over; "oh hi, are you the kiwi working at McMurdo?" "yeah i am" i cheerfully replied, "oh you're Vanessa's sister"

How small a world is that! He worked with my sis Vanessa as an ambulance officer for Wellington Free, and he's over here working at Scott base as the medic.

We left Scott Base and walked back to McMurdo, with my newly purchased cadbury creame egg from carefully resting in my jacket pocket. We took photos of our eyelashes which had snow/ice droplet stuck to them.

Around 5.30pm this evening, a friend Heiff and I, a firefighter from Colorado, hiked up Observation hill. It had the most amazing view i have ever seen, and the summit bears a cross in rememberance to Scott, which was errected in 1913. Can you believe that was 94 years ago and it's still standing strong and proud.

I'm making tons of new friends here, they're calling me crazy kiwi, cause i'm always laughing and joking around.

I attended an outdoor lecture tonight to enable me to use some of the skiing/hiking routes available. I learnt that if you're wet, cold and tired.... "changing your socks, changes your attitude"

I like it.