MCM>CHC Cargo Class
Smooth. We arrived in Christchurch without a glitch. The ritual of Bag-drag was painless. Bag-drag is when you drag all your luggage up the hill to the Movement Control Center. This can be quite laborious when you have a lot and if there is a line. We mailed a lot of stuff to our various homes around the globe to pick up as we pass by. Plus, I used the UT shop truck to haul our stuff up the hill early to avoid lines. We rode a Delta
(the same one I drove out Cape Evans) the 30 miles out to Pegasus Field, the white ice runway. What makes it a white ice runway is that it is made by a laborious process of compacting layer upon layer of snow until it is hard enough to land a C-17 cargo plane on.
We loaded very soon after arriving at the runway and took off immediately. We were 140 passengers flying to CHC but the C-17 is much more spacious and comfortable that the old 141s. They actually have seats that face forward with ample leg room and endless headroom. We arrived in Christchurch almost exactly 5 hours after takeoff. Passport control was smooth, as was customs. We had all our issue Extreme Cold Weather gear returned to the Clothing Distribution Center, hopped a bus into town and were checked in to our hotel in just over an hour. We went out immediately and ordered Indian food. Asian is the only way to go on NZ and in Christchurch there is a bountiful selection.
Today we ran errands. We went to immigration to get out visa extended and were successful; we went to the travel agent to get our tickets re-issued and to get our Australian visas and were successful; we went to the bank to deposit funds in our NZ account and were successful. The only big disappointment was that we were unable to rent a car. We called about 10 different places and went to about 10 others in town and no one had anything.
I got a call from our friend Sasha who is a researcher on the NBP. They were on their way into Lyttleton harbor on their return from McMurdo. Tomorrow we are going to meet up and, if the wind is good, we are going to fly my stunt kite.
Luke