Southward bound!

It's been almost two years since I left the South pole, and now I'm about two days (with a little luck) from being there again!   I arrived in Christchurch late last night, went to orientation and ECW issue this morning, and am scheduled for my ice flight in the morning.  Right now I'm keeping my fingers crossed that everything goes smoothly.  As much as I like New Zealand, I'd rather not boomerang (when the flight turns around midway due to poor conditions at McMurdo).  I took a lot of pictures of the ECW issue last time, except for this one that shows the warehouse of clothing.


Due to an 9 hour layover in Sydney I was actually able to leave the airport and see a bit of the city with a fellow SPTer.  We had a great afternoon of walking around the wharf, the opera house and then through the botanical gardens.  We made it back to the train station just in time to beat a major thunderstorm, which we then had front row seats for from the airport.

 After ECW issue this morning, we went into downtown Christchurch.   When I was here two years ago, the entire downtown was off-limits (the red zone) due to the 2011 earthquake.  Large fences with screens prevented us from even looking at much of the devastated area.   But Cathedral square and downtown reopened in July of last year, so we were able to go look around a bit.  Many of the impacted building have now been torn down, although a few still remained.  I saw some signs of  rebuilding, but it has obviously been a slow process to bring back the necessary infrastructure.

We  also took a long walk through the Christchurch botanical gardens.   I'll refrain from comparing and contrasting them with those in  Sydney, because both were really great.    Instead, I'll just post some pictures of my favorite parts.