Arctic Trucks

The expedition is going fine. They have already driven almost 600 kilometres but still have 850 to go to the fuel drop. The snow now is much easier to drive in than last year and they have managed to keep the speed at 20 km pr. hour.  The weather is fine, the sun is shining and the temperature is minus 20. It gets a lot colder during the night, last night all the thermometers in the cars went down to minus 40 which is a low as the thermometers show.  The vodka could only be outside for two minutes before it froze!  

They have now driven through the mountains onto the high plate.  This group seems to be handling the altitude better than the group last year. Never the less they can feel the headache and the power is a bit low.

When they came to the site where the Basler crashed last year they met a group of Russians that had been flown in to try to fix the Basler in such a way that it could be flown back to Novo for further repairs or dismantled.   They have now driven another 150 km towards the Fuel Depo.

Gísli Karel, who stayed behind in Novo to work on the two remaining cars, is ready with one the cars and the other one will be ready before he departs for Cape Town on the 20th of November.
His work has progressed faster than anyone expected, even though he is not getting any help and the working conditions are very primitive.  Otherwise he is comfortable in Novo.

 

Talked to Mike on Sunday and he wanted me to let everyone know that he is really sorry, because he is having problems connecting to the internet pdate from Mk send his updates from antarctica.
 
On sunday they reached 3300 metere, S74 4.6 Mins, E10 54.7 Mins and the temp was -40 at about 7pm. They have not had any trouble with crevasse`s, as they have a ground penetrating radar to detect these. They did however have to change route, so Mike was very proud to let me know that they were exploring somewhere where no man had been before :) He also said there are amazing rock formations and geology to be seen.
On sunday Mike was suffering from a bit of alltitude sickness, but not anything seroius as he was just feeling very tired.

The expedition to the fuel drop started this morning. Gísli, Freyr, Mike and Andrei are already off, driving in two cars. Gísli Karel stayed behind working on the cars, but if everything goes as planned he will be returning to Cape Town on 20th of November.

The first challenge is to find a way through the mountains up to the high plate. When we talked to them they had already driven 150 kilometres and on the front of the cars they had put some equipment that searches for crevasses. A much need equipment since there are crevasses all over in the area. The equipment is working fine and makes them a lot safer. But even so, one of the Hiluxes fell down a crevasse which they had not noticed and lay beside the car. It was not big and getting the car up was no problem.

They are already half way through the mountains and last night they slept in 1800 meters altitude. Next night the altitude will probably be close to 2500 meters. Hopefully they will manage to get through the mountains today and tomorrow they will head for the place of the fuel drop. 

This is a critical time of the expedition and hopefully the altitude will not make them sick. 

 

Gísli, Freyr and Gísli Karel have been working hard on the cars. All the four car got started without problems, those Hiluxes are something else! Two of the cars are almost ready for the expedition up to the high plate but most likely they will depart from Novo next Saturday.  They are expecting Mike’s flight to arrive early tomorrow morning.

They will be driving through the crevasse area and spend the night in 2200 meter altitude up to the fuel drop. There will be four persons driving in two cars; Gísli, Freyr, Mike and Andrei.  Another Russian will be joining when the plane brings in the fuel, but he is planning to jump down in a parasute. He used to be in the Russian Special Forces and is extremely experienced jumper.

Gísli Karel will stay behind in Novo and continue working on the two remaining cars. They have not got as much assistance as they expected and therefore Gísli Karel will have to work really hard back in Novo.

Otherwise everybody is doing fine and the spirit is very good.

Today after several days of rain, things improved so I decided I should go the cable car and go up Table Mountain . Walked some of the way, plus got a taxi the rest, as it was further than I initially thought.

The mountain was clothed in a veil of clouds, but by the time I made it to the top it had cleared and I was greeted with a fantastic view of Cape Town . Spent some time at the top followed the marked walks, seeing much special flora much of which is only found in this area. Had lunch at the restaurant at the top.

 
Will get the flight briefing tonight for the Antarctic flight tomorrow.

Departed Stavanger at 1930 to Oslo stayed overnight at SAS hotel at Gardemoen. Took 1135 BA flight to London next day. Arrived terminal 5 and as usual I had some hassle at Security, and managed to loose my reading glasses. Did some duty free shopping, and got a good Sony HD VC, plus some more memory for the D300. Departed 1750 for Johannesburg and it was more relaxing traveling business! I managed to watch a video on Mawson the famous Australian polar explorer. It was pretty scary stuff, with one of the team falling into a crevasse with most of the food, all never to be seen again. There were two of them left and had about 500 kms to go, ended up eating the dogs one by one, and managed to get a form of food poisoning from eating the dogs livers! It sent the other guy slightly mad and he started to eat his frost bitten figures before dying from the cold! Mawson managed to make it even after falling into a crevasse just a few kms from rescue. Epic stuff!

Also noticed that the outside temperature was around -42C during the flight, which is about what it is in Antarctica …should have sat on the wings to acclimatize.

Arrived Johannesburg and only just made the connection to Cape Town , so when I arrived in Cape Town it was not a surprise that one of the bags was missing.
Hotel very tradition and quiet. Meet Victor who runs the Antarctica company. He seemed a very experienced polar person, and has been the North Pole over 20 times, plus has over wintered in the Russian Antarctic base called Vostok which has the world record for the coldest place on the planet at -89C!

Walked down into town in the evening and ended up at the Water Front a redeveloped area along the old docks, with lots of shops, restaurants and pubs. Found a really good restaurant called Servuga, and I feasted on Springboks and Shiras.