Clearing Up, Clearing Out and Coming Home
19/05/2010
The homecoming for our Explorer Team at Heathrow Airport began with an emotional reunion for family and friends. After so long away, Martin Hartley, Ann Daniels and Charlie Paton are resting and acquainting themselves with what’s happened in the world since they left Britain in February to begin the expedition.
There's a lot for them to catch up on too.....and these are just a few highlights:
**UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown called an election. The vote produced a 'hung' parliament and a coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats is now the Government
**The Greek economy went into crisis and put pressure on the Euro
**A volcano with an unpronounceable name erupted in Iceland causing travel chaos
**England finally won a World Cup .....the Twenty Twenty Cricket World Cup that is….
Most of all though, like the Ice Base team before them, the news they wanted most was from their own families. No wonder it was an emotional return.
Yet the work is not completely finished. For the support team there is still a lot to be done. In Resolute, Ian Wesley and Claire Margetts completed a hectic time packing kit into storage locally and prepared materiel as well as the last science samples to bring south to our science partners and our headquarters in London. While the media focused on our explorers emerging into the arrivals lounge at Heathrow Airport, Ian and Claire came behind them with ten huge cases and bags.
Meanwhile everything used on the ice for both parts of the expedition has been lifted off. When striking the Ice Base every last piece of kit, including waste of all kinds, was removed from the floating sea ice. The explorers shared part of their journey back to Resolute with eight empty fuel barrels used by our air support company Kenn Borek for their resupply flights. They were uplifted on the way back from a cache at Cape Discovery.
In London, the Operations team will be spending days unpacking, sorting and checking over returned supplies before they're stored until the next project.
