The day began with an early departure from our B&B, getting changed into our cold weather gear at the CDC, and going through the check in procedure at the US Antarctic terminal.

We were all very excited to hear that we had been reassigned from the usual C-131 transport plane to a new, spacious C-17 with all the modern conveniences.

Normally on C-131's passengers are packed tightly into rows of hammock style seats and you have to interlock your knees with the person across from you and jostle for elbow-room with the people next to you. Using the facilities means climbing over 40 or 50 people to get to the barrel with a curtain around it. On the C-17 we had ample room to stretch out and relax, and were able to walk around and look out the one small window, and best of all, climb up to the cockpit to bother the pilots and look at the panorama of Antarctic scenery below us.

The bright white expanse below us was broken up in places by leads in the sea ice where open water channels snake across the landscape for miles. Later we flew over the Victoria Land coast of the Antarctic continent and could see massive mountains below us with glaciers winding their way through valleys. So, four and a half hours went by and we were all still relatively happy when a crew member came on the intercom to inform us that conditions on the ice-runway in McMurdo were too dicey to attempt a landing, and we would be making a U-turn and heading back to New Zealand. When landing on ice, I guess, it is important for the pilot to be able to see the runway coming up to greet him, and wind-driven snow can make this difficult. As a result many of the flights down to McMurdo become "boomerang" flights. We have all heard horror stories about people flying on boomerang flights 6 days in a row. This was the first experience for most of us, and I think we are all dearly hoping it will be our last.

We made it back to Christchurch 9 hours after taking off and proceeded back to our hotel to rest and recover before making another attempt the following day.