February 2013

It is a mix of pleasure and frustration that we welcome you to the Live Map service on The Coldest Journey website, courtesy of Yellow Brick Tracking. A pleasure because it is a really cool addition to the site through which you will be able to chart the Ice Team’s progress in Antarctica; a frustration because it is not currently working on our site and you have to be redirected to another sit…

Another short video from Ian Prickett. This time he gives us an update on what has been happening today. As you will see, not much! Still, it’s a good insight into conditions down there right…

Every day the Operations Team in the UK gets sent a report on the day’s actitivies compiled by Brian Newham, including weather conditions, distance travelled and current position. In the spirit of sharing, here’s today’s: Best wishes, Hugh – Operations HQ Daily Report Sunday 10th Feb 2013 Current position S70 33′ 36.7″” E023 28′ 05.1″ (same as yesterday) Distance travelled today zero km Weather…

By Brian Newham (written on Saturday evening) A grey and breezy start to the day which gradually deteriorated into blowing snow and visibility of only about 100m. Anyone who knows the term “whiteout” will know what we have been experiencing – the sky merges with the ground, there is no contrast at all and its quite disorientating. Despite the conditions we were able to push slowly southwards and…

Spencer Smirl’s latest blog. The first successful day of travel finally happened. Well, not completely successful, but just about. Yesterday was Thursday the 7th of February. It was our 18th day on the Antarctic continent. Long days spent unloading and assembling our massive amount of kit. The sun never stopped shining and the temperature didn’t spend much time below zero. The struggles of coping…

The Ice Train is on the move for the very first time. This morning we made final preparations and stowed the last of our equipment before setting out on our journey to lay a fuel depot further south. The strategy behind the fuel depot is twofold. Firstly, we need to reduce the weights that we are towing so we need to position fuel between our starting point at the coast and the Pole – we w…

By Anton Bowring, on-board the SA Agulhas. The lavatory in my cabin exploded this evening. At the time I was minding my own business and, having minded it, I pulled the lever – not hard, mind you. Well, I was terrified, the thing erupted with a belching noise, half gurgle and half woosh! Great clumps of water leapt into the air and crashed on the floor increasing in size until I was pressed to…

I have put it to the group as what to call the configuration of all the pieces of equipment once hooked together ready to pull out on our fuel laying journey. Their answer: Ice Train. This actually takes its name from the Land Trains that roll across the Australian Outback; we are not much different from them other than them having blue skies, red dirt, plenty of heat and kangaroos where we w…