No really, Penguins!

Ok, so I've already been at the South Pole Station (where there are no penguins) for a week. I should probably write about what's going on here, but I still haven't gotten to writing about the best part of the trip down here. I'll catch up eventually.

We had a full day to spend in McMurdo, and almost all of it was spent collecting rumors about penguins, walking back and forth to find penguins, taking pictures of penguins, and talking about penguins. Penguins are not uncommon at McMurdo, but they are still special enough that it's an event when they come to visit. At least, it was definitely a major event for all of us who were visiting for the first time or just passing through. Many people who work at South Pole Station can return to Antarctica again and again and never see any penguins or other Antarctic wildlife. Nothing lives at the pole except people, and so it all depends on whether you get lucky in Mactown while you're passing through.

Penguins are just awesome. There's not much more you can say than that. Everyone gets excited about them, and everyone grins like crazy watching them waddle around, slide on their bellies, and otherwise express their uniquely avian cuteness. The ones that visited us were the most common kind, Adelie penguins. There was a large group of them, and they came right up to Hut point and wandered around snooping into things. The people kept a respectful distance and everyone kept a hush. At the quietest moments, though, you could still hear the snapping of camera shutters and the rustle-crunch of many penguin feet on the snowy McMurdo shore.

Because penguins are often the first thing people think of when they think of Antarctica, I'd been prepared for the fact that after you've been here, that's usually the first thing people ask about. I was sure that I'd have to say "no no, no penguins at the South Pole, didn't see any, sorry". But I did! And took lots of pictures, as did the rest of the SPT team.



Later in the day, we explored McMurdo some more, taking a hike up Observation Hill, visiting the store, and spending some time in the evening at the Coffee House. The views from the top of Obs hill were spectacular, and we could see a tiny poof from the tip of Mount Erebus, the volcano that sits just behind the station. It was also possible to see how much work the icebreaker had actually done. As we'd watched it from the shore the night before, its task looked so insurmountable and its efforts so slow and futile. But from the height of the hill, we could see the long channel it had created an open space large enough for the cargo ships to
turn around and return to sea.


Below are just a couple more photographs of McMurdo from that day. And in the next entry I'll
finally get to the South Pole, promise!