Update from New Zealand!

Hello again everyone!  I'm sitting comfortably here in the city of Christchurch, in the country of New Zealand.  Everyone that heads down to the WAIS Divide camp in Antarctica, must first go through New Zealand.  Our flights have been delayed for a few days, so it gave Paddington and myself a few days to check out a few sights in the city here.  First off, to give you a clearer picture of where we are, here is a map of New Zealand:

If you look at the South Island, you can see the city of Christchurch.  This is where we are.


Here's what we did:

First we went to the Nature museum and

hung out with some penguins!

Then we went to look at the Albatrosses

 

Next, we went over to the Egypt exhibit and got to see

a real mummy from ancient Egypt!

We headed over to another area of the museum and

hung out with some dinosaurs!

 

(look near his feet)

...Then stopped to look at a huge meteorite weighing

over 1000 pounds!

 

On our way out, we went through the Antarctica

exhibit and tried to take a ride on the SNO-CAT

(look near the door handle)

 

We passed by some seals

 

 and finally by an old snowmobile.

As it stands today, we are all scheduled to fly down to Antarctica in 2 more days.  If everything goes well, our next update should be from the ice.  Hopefully, I'll get some good penguin photos this year!

take care everyone,

-john and paddington