Actually, they are not coming to McMurdo, because they have their own base
just over the hill about a 30 minute walk from McMurdo.
In reality you did see a lot of New Zealanders in McMurdo. They had an office
there, used our military transport planes to get back and forth between Antarctica
and New Zealand, and kept one of their helicopters in McMurdo which supported
both their scientific projects as well as ours.
On Thursday evenings WE invaded Scott Base. A bus full of McMurdoites would
travel over to Scott Base to visit the base store, but mostly to visit the
base bar.
As you can see from the sign above they had all of the important tourist facilities. The population during the summer was about 70 people. This sign was later taken down because some suit (in extreme cold weather gear) considered it to be too controversial with a group of U.S. senators and congressmen coming to visit Antarctica. We all thought it was kind of cute. It went back up after they left.
All of the buildings were painted green -- government green. The buildings were also all connected by enclosed walkways, so you could walk from one end to the other without having to go outside. The facilities were pretty modern. During the winter months the site is monitored, and power generation is monitored and controlled by a satellite link to New Zealand. The lines and bumps in the sea ice are pressure ridges that pop up when the ice is squeezed together.
There was a pipeline that ran from McMurdo along the side of the road to Scott Base. It was used to supply fuel to Williams Field airport when operations shifted to there from the ice runway during the summer.
2018-03-05