Day 26
S85 5' 17.16", W80 46' 40.80"
///accounts.multifaceted.undergo
The halfway point! Thiels at last.
“Good evening everybody. It’s Martin, on day 26 of the expedition.
It gives me great pleasure to say that I’m calling tonight from Thiel airfield. Now this is significant, because it’s just over the half-way mark. So, we’ve done over 300 nautical miles now, and we’ve got just under 300 nautical miles to go.
Conditions today significantly better than the previous three days. There’s nowhere near as much sastrugi around here, so we can get a bit of a glide going. However, that said, there’s been some fresh snow, and that means that I’m slipping and sliding a bit more. I can’t get quite the same grip. That’s a bit of an issue as it keeps getting my Achilles tendon, my left Achilles tendons a bit painful, and it’s getting gradually worse. But I’m managing it at the minute, and I’m stretching it of an evening. And it’s getting through to the end of the day just about.
I had some great pleasure today, not just because we’ve reached the halfway point but because for the first time on the expedition, I didn’t actually fall over today. Normally on the expedition, I’m averaging between five and 20 falls a day. But I didn’t have a single fall today. Lots of slipping and sliding but no falls as such.
Lou on the other hand, did fall today. And that gave me some pleasure. I can’t tell you how much. A warped, sick sense of humour in me smiled and laughed as he was on the floor. Bearing in mind he’s probably fallen six times in the entire expedition, which is a daily account for myself normally. So that was a bit of morale for me today.
Thiel airfield is probably one of the most remote, if not the most remote airfield in the world. It’s literally just a little landing strip of snow and ice, like everything else I’ve been seeing for the past 200 miles. But there’s a little portacabin in here, with a guest book, which we’ve signed. And there’s some amazing comments from people who’ve been through here over the years gone by, including our very own expedition manager Wendy Searle, when she was here. Legend.
So that was good to look through there and put our signatures in that unique guest book.
Psychologically, my mind’s saying yes, fantastic, we’ve done half way, whereas my body is saying ‘are you having a laugh? We’ve got another 300 to do?’ It’s a constant daily battle between mind and body continues. And so far, the mind is winning. I’m just hoping that this Achilles holds out.
That’s us for today. We’re in a good place and we’re looking forward to carrying on and hopefully increasing the distances slightly between here and 87. We know we’re going to get hit hard with the sastrugi at 87, ALE on our safety brief from our route safety team, a cracking guy called Simon Abrahams, has shown us some of the crevassing around there, and some of the sastrugi, and it’s significantly bigger than what we’ve been dealing with so far. So we’re going to have to deal with that.
Finally, I want to make a shout out to my godson Alfie, who turned 16 today. Sorry I can’t be there mate. I know that I owe you a go-karting session, and COVID stopped it initially. And now Antarctica has stopped it, but I promise you, as soon as your dad gets his act together and gives me some dates, and I’m in a country for more than two minutes, we will get go-karting. I would say so that I can kick your bum, but I know for a fact that you will beat both your father and I hands down; you’re a far better racer than us. But we’ll give it our best shot.
Happy birthday, I hope you’ve had a great day, and I’ll see you when I get back mate.
Thank you everybody. And goodnight.”
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