Arrived
After years of planning and a five-and-a-half-hour flight from Cape Town, we finally touched down at Troll Airfield at 3:30 UTC (local time here). The experience was nothing short of surreal.
The Boeing 737 glided smoothly onto the ice sheet as if it were landing on a conventional runway anywhere else. From the comfort of a “normal” plane seat, I gazed out the window at the vast, otherworldly expanse of East Antarctica, a sharp contrast with being on a plane I would typically take from Leeds to Oslo.
It was a moment where the extraordinary felt almost ordinary—a juxtaposition that will stay with me for a lifetime.
After being ushered away from the plane, we were greeted by friends old and new in the “Arrivals” area, doubling up as summer barbeque. I promptly grabbed a sausage and toasted bun from the grill before being whisked off to the station on a tracked personnel carrier.
