The flight is not till early this evening. So we leave the motel and visit the International Antarctic Centre. It’s located right next to the airport. While you can’t visit it, here is also the base for the US Antarctic division and there are a couple of US air force cargo plane sitting on the tarmac.
We buy our tickets and enter. They have a penguin aquarium and the keeper gives a talk on them while giving them a feed. There is a general exhibition area that keeps the kids entertained for a while. They also have some huskies here with their handlers, I just hope they’ve been well feed. Apparently while they are OK for us to pat the dogs, they ask you not to look them right in the eye, something about Alpha of the pack. We then rug up and enter the Storm Dome, an ice chamber with a fan to get the wind-chill down to -16° – Fresh….
An average tourist attraction café lunch, then finally at our allotted time, we get into the back of a Hägglund, an all-terrain vehicle used down in Antarctica to get around. Justine, due to her back, sensibly sits this one out and the kids and I go for a ride in it over their obstacle course. I can assure you these things have zero suspension and are incredibly noisy, but can climb damn steep embankments and cross flooded waterways.
We finally we drop the car off and head over to the airport and check-in for the flight back. We came over on an Air New Zealand 737 as they had the best timing, but on the way home we’re flying on an Emirates Airbus A380, it the Christchurch to Dubai/London run, but it stops in Sydney. I guess they have a lot of seats to fill as the flight really wasn’t that expensive.
We kill the couple of hours in the airport then the kids Love the A380 and play computer games all the way home.
Speaking of home, we get our 2 hour timezone back, but it’s been a long day and it’s good to be home
I’ve been so blown away by this holiday, NZ was absolutely amazing and the scenery was so beautiful.
Seeing it in the motorhome and being able to stay right in the middle of it was sensational. NZ is just so made for travelling this way.
Our Trip