Tractor trip to Cape Evans

Part 2 of 3
The day that we got back from Happy Camper, I basically took a shower, ate some food and fell asleep. I think I lost consciousness around 6 pm. It had been a long 36 hours. At 7:30 am, I was beginning to think I should pry myself out of bed (13.5 hours was probably enough sleep for one night), when the phone rang. Turns out, a couple of the guys on station were going out to Cape Evans (about 15 miles or so from McMurdo) that morning to groom the road, and they had two extra seats. Would Mahesh and I be interested in going along for a ride?

Yes we would.

I scrambled to wake myself up, get dressed and head out to the tractors. We drove through town, and got on the sea ice. From that point on, we were driving on frozen ocean. Oooh.
Here I am with one of the tractors.
It was a cloudy day, but you could still see pretty far. It is too bad it wasn't clear; the area we drove to is right at the base of Mount Erebus. That would have been really cool. But we drove. And drove. And drove some more. Eventually, we came to an small island called Big Razorback. John (one of the drivers) said he saw seals there the day before. And guess what? They were still there. I had to do a lot of editing on this picture to zoom in close enough to the seal, but here is my friend, a Weddell seal. He is waving to you.
There were about eight of them, all laying out on the snow and ice. There was a crack that we could see right at the base of the island where they came up from.
Continuing on our journey, we eventually came to Cape Evans. Scott and his men constructed another hut here, I believe in 1911. It was from here that Scott and his team departed for their journey to reach the South Pole. Scott was determined to beat Amundsen and his men to the pole but unfortunately, did not make it in time. Amundsen and his team relied heavily on sled dogs to bring them South, while Scott used a mix of horses and dogs. The horses didn't fare as well as had been anticipated. On the return journey home, Scott's men perished one by one. Eventually, unable to continue on due to malnutrition and a horrid blizzard outside of their tent (a Scott tent. Ooh. Ominous.), Scott and the final men died.
There was an interesting snow drift behind the hut.
We weren't able to enter the hut, because we were not on a tour and didn't have the key. But in front of the hut there was an anchor of a ship. I've heard this story before, but for the life of me, I can't determine what ship it came from. There was a ship anchored to this spot, but was torn away from its chain, and was lost to sea. All that remains is this anchor.
On the return journey back to station, we stopped to take a few pictures of some icebergs near the Erebus glacier tongue.
It was an incredible day, and the day that followed was equally as amazing.

Stay tuned!