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17.12.09
A Trivial Pursuit
Apparently, they're coasting along so easily that they've found the time to play board games in the evening! Well, perhaps it's not quite that easy but they certainly seem to be making good progress. Update from yesterday comes courtesy of Sophia (Singapore) and today's is from Kylie (New Zealand).
Sophia (Singapore)'s PodCast:
Link to Podcast
Sophia's PodCast in writing:
"Hi everyone. This is Sophia from the expedition team. We are on day 24 today.
We had a pretty good day. Weather was good. We have a nice sunny day with light wind so it's very good for traveling or for skiing. Typically in weather like this we are dressed real light. On our bottoms we typically have our Chocolate Fish thermal, and the salopettes. The salopettes are actually your pants with a layer of fleece underneath to keep our legs warm and protected from the wind. But sometimes when it gets too warm we have zips by the side where we can unzip and air it as well. On our top again we have our Chocolate Fish thermal and we typically in weather when it's sunny and right when we would just have our wind proof jacket on top of the thermal. It might sound a bit little but when we are skiing we get pretty warm, so it's a nice balance. But of course for some of us we feel a little bit chilly we put on a fleece underneath.
We do have another layer, our smocks. We have two smocks from Montane. Again, these are pretty much like our salopettes. They have a layer of fleece underneath and windproof on the outside. but we would typically wear it only when it's very, very windy because they give us very good protection.
That's all for today's chat. I'll talk to you again next time."
Kylie (New Zealand)'s PodCast:
Link to Podcast
Kylie's PodCast in writing:
"Hi folks, it's Kylie from New Zealand. Reporting in from Camp 24 on day 25.
We've had a really good day. We've been pushing slightly uphill most of the way the last week. We should have been able to see a little bit pulling up hopes. But sort of getting a bit of a surprise when we look at the altimeter, we're over 7000 feet now. The South Pole is just over 9000 feet so you know we really don't have so far to go.
An altitude gain is great, the conditions are harder and faster now. There is more sastrugi starting to appear a little bit more like the end of the first week, a bit tougher on our joints and things, girls seem to mowing through it no problem. We did a whopping 16.1 nautical miles today and it was all pretty much uphill, so that's good.
So we're back to our 6 legs a day, 6, 1 and half hour legs in about 10 hours so back to 10 hour days for a bit. Today we reached 87 degrees of latitude so that's a reason to celebrate. We're just heading over to the other team to run a Trivial Pursuit night. Got team questions about the Antarctic.
Yeah, so we're all good, the moral is good and everyone is getting along really well. It's a great bunch of people great bunch of girls and we're just trucking along at this stage, looking for any incentive to have a small celebration and pat each other on the back. Bye."
Photo by Robert Hollingworth