The Blog

Having spent four months holed up inside at one of the most inhospitable camp sites in the world, the Ice Team did not need much persuading to get their walking boots on… Check out this and dozens of other images taken over the last few weeks on our Flickr site here.

A week or so ago we asked you all to offer up your best captions for this picture – and were absolutely inundated with responses both here and on Facebook. Poor old Brian was given the task of creating a shortlist and, after not an inconsiderable amount of time one night, he whittled more than 150 suggestions down to just seven to put before the rest of the team to vote on independently. After…

  Photo by Brian…

Today We were extremely fortunate to have had such good conditions yesterday and to have taken full advantage of them. Whilst the weather wasn’t bad today, the visibility has been quite limited and it would have been hard to do a meaningful reconnaissance of the route ahead . With that already done and some of the loads already moved through this tricky section, as we did yesterday, we had good…

Every morning and every evening Brian our Ice Team leader braves the cold and windy conditions to take meteorological observations as part of our very many scientific projects during the expedition. These then get sent back to the Met Office in the UK for analysis and archiving. Below you will find the bulk of Brian’s findings in the form of  four interesting graphs charting the temperature,…

Ian’s latest video from Antarctica was shot over a few days as the team were finally able to move camp. Having spent the last four months overwintering in the same spot, there was much to do before the Ice Team could finally get under way. This video encapsulates Ian’s good mood at getting back on the road and heading homeward at last. Treacherous crevasses and blue ice fields await them…

by Brian Newham Visibility wasn’t great this morning but it looked to be improving so we made a move. All four loads made it 5km to our old summer depot site. The edge of the mountains are now tantalisingly close and as the conditions improved they were a feast for the eyes. Soon we will be back amongst them. This afternoon we broke the loads down from four to seven in readiness for the tricky…

by Brian Newham A bright and sunny day but a wind gusting well over 60 knots (70 mph) added a bit more of a challenge. Surprisingly, despite the high wind there was very little drifting snow in the air and visibility was quite good, so we made a move. The two loads of fuel scoots went first and were dropped at 5km. Cabooses next and they then leap-frogged the scoots to a point just under 10km.

1901 – 1904 – Discovery Expedition The British National Antarctic Expedition commonly referred to as the Discovery Expedition, led by Robert Falcon Scott, was the first official British exploration of the Antarctic regions since James Clark Ross’s voyage sixty years earlier. The ship “Discovery” was built especially for the expedition at a cost of £51,000 (£4.1 m today). Amongst the crew was…