To Antarctica, Part 3: Third time’s (not) the charm!

Part 1: To Antarctica: Almost there!
Part 2: To Antarctica: Almost ALMOST there
Part 3: To Antarctica: Third time’s (not) the charm!
Part 4: To Antarctica: Frolicking in coastal New Zealand
Part 5: To Antarctica: We made it!
Part 6: To Antarctica: -50˚C wind chill, Sea Ice training
Part 7: To Antarctica: Drills (big and small), Skidoos (and ski-don’ts), ice SCUBA (-2˚C), and Seals (Weddels!)

Skipped a day, so this is about yesterday (Friday the 3rd…)

We get ready very early again to make another attempt onto the ice. We drive to the Antarctic Centre…

Pick our our gear from the sea of orange bags…
and put on all of our cold weather gear for the flight!

Yes, that’s a leopard-print neck pillow.

All geared up, we are told that the flight before us was cancelled due to weather, but that we were still waiting for confirmation on our flight.

So we changed out of our cold weather gear…

…then they told us to gear up and check back in…

boo-hoo.

…then 10 minutes later, they told us that our flight was officially cancelled, and were told to check back into our hotels. This was our third attempt at flying to Antarctica, and we felt like this:

we headed back to the Commordore to plan out a nice day.

We decided to take the city bus to downtown Christchurch, a 20-minute ride away. The bus system here is incredibly well-maintained, and as usual in my international travels I am jealous of their public transportation system. Back at the restart mall, we got lunch at the Hummingbird Coffeehouse, which not only has amazing flat whites but also has great food plates.Wandered around the rest of the Restart Mall,and eventually made our way back to the hotel for a dinner of meat pies and a New Zealand beer tasting!