McMurdo = gravel-pit

I am finally back in New Zealand but want to give you an impression of my last few hours in Antarctica from yesterday.
First of all, we had a joyful and relaxed flight in our LC-130 from Pole to McMurdo. We ere only two passengers on the flight. Nobody was interested in leaving the Pole on 13th Dec because the big centennial party is on the 14th ! So we missed that one, too bad. On the other hand, this party was mostly for the Norwegian visitors. So never mind.

The Pegasus airfield with the Antarctic coast in the back

Signs are covering the road from the airfield to Mc Murdo. This one here is too avoid to many accidents with crossing kiwis... :)

In McMurdo, the air field which is accesible in this time of the year is the Pegasus air field. This is a one hour ride distant to Mc Murdo. The airfield on where we arrived from Christchurch three weeks  ago was a different one only about 15 min to McMurdo but at this time of the year is too dangerous to land because the ice is getting thinner during the Antarctic summer. The Pegasus field instead is not so much affected by the summer since the ice cap is about 100 ft thick covered by several ft of white ice - dusty ice that piles up on the road and makes the journey to McMurdo a quite bumpy ride on-board Ivan the Terra-bus. 
After arrival in MacTown I discovered a totally new picture of that gold-diggers wild west village.   Now it is more like a gravel-pit. Dusty roads and melt water flows where snow and ice was covering the streets three weeks ago.

Gravel-pit McMurdo

A seal lying behind the coast line on the ice. Due to the pressure of the moving ice against the main land big chunks of ice are sticking like knife points.

My stay at MacTown was really short - 6 hours. Around midnight we were called to building 140 to be picked up by Ivan  for returning to the airfield and jump on the C-17 for the 5 hour flight to Christchurch. We hadn't much cargo on board so that people used the extra space to lay down an get their well-deserved sleep...I was falling asleep immediately after take off in my seat and when I woke up and took this picture every single spot on the floor was already taken!

On-board the C-17.