Friday October 3:

François writing

After 26 hours of travel, we arrive in Christchurch, the largest city of New Zealand’s South island. We pick up our heavy luggage and go straight to the CDC or ‘clothing distribution center’, a large warehouse where the clothing for Antarctica is stored and distributed. The CDC is located next to the airport and the big C-17 airplanes that carry people and goods to McMurdo are loaded there.

After a short lecture and film, we try on our Antarctica equipment: several kinds of gloves, many layers of underwear, a hood, goggles, insulated boots and a thick bright red parka. That’s a lot of clothing! I can wait to try it out in the field. Best of all, we all get a free flu shot, DJ just loves it and asks for more!

Because of bad weather in Antarctica, the flights going to McMurdo have been delayed. Our flight is number 3 but flights 1 and 2 still have not gone out. This means we have to stay in New Zealand until the weather gets better and flight 1 and 2 are gone. This is not so bad after all, it gives us the opportunity to visit New Zealand for a few days.

We head to the city center, check into our hotel and spend the rest of the day walking around Christchurch. It’s a really nice city, in a lot of ways similar to European city: many old stone buildings, similar landscaping, lively terraces where people hang out drinking beer and smoking cigarettes…

Driving in New Zealand is on the left. This is a little disturbing when you’re walking around town, you’re never too sure where to look when you cross a street. I bet a lot of tourists get ran over because of this.

After a lot of walking around town, we have great diner in a Japanese restaurant.

It is kind of exciting for me to be in New Zealand, because it is the farthest land from France where I grew up. This means when I am standing in New Zealand, France is 12700km under my feet.

The Antarctica center and the CDC are just a short walk from the airport in Christchurch.

At the CDC, bags full of cold weather clothing are ready to be loaded on the plane.

The second floor at the CDC: boxes full of cold weather gear.

That’s a lot of red parkas!.

These are samples of all the items we can get.

Marco checks out the insulated, waterproof boots.

Christchurch has a wonderful botanic garden and pretty houses.

These Rhododendrons grow everywhere on the south island and turn into huge trees.

Many trees were blooming at the botanic garden. It’s spring here!

An old church in the city centre.

The botanic garden.