A friend of the 2OV clan, Padraig Riley, is off on something of an adventure starting from December of this year. We hope he’s packed warm because it won’t exactly be a lazy summer spent at Caprice. We’ll hand over to the man himself to fill you in on what’s cracking…

Did you know South Africa has a base in Antarctica? Yup, ever since 1959 South Africa has set up bases on the icy Southern continent, which is a solid 56 years and counting. Although three of those bases are now long buried under kilometres of thick ice the fourth base, SANAE IV, was built in 1997 and is still going strong.

Perched on the edge of anunatak (that’s a rocky outcrop peeping out of the icy surface, for our non-Inuit speakers out there) the base is home to a 10-member over-wintering team that spends over a year on the ice, maintaining the base and the scientific equipment in and around it.

Antarctica is literally the coldest, windiest, driest, least populated and most remote continent on the planet. Outside temperatures drop to -50 °C, winds reach up to 250km/h, and there are periods of perpetual sunlight and perpetual darkness. So what’s the big deal, why go there? This from the South African National Space Agency (SANSA):

Antarctica is often referred to as a “Window into Geospace” as the earth’s magnetic field lines converge at the poles and act as a funnel for space plasma to travel into the earth’s atmosphere; making it a “sweet spot” for space science research. SANSA operates a range of space monitoring instrumentation from the base, to gain a deeper understanding of our space environment. There are various research programmes on the go such as looking into the effects of space weather on our navigation and communication systems.

The team crazy enough (lucky enough?) to make the journey to Antarctica every year consists of diesel mechanics, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, physicists, meteorologists and a doctor. These brave souls work at the base in total isolation – all in the name of science!

If you would like to find out more about the South African National Antarctic Expedition – that’s what S.A.N.A.E stands for in case you were wondering – you can visit the South African National Antarctic Program website. You can also get in touch with the team preparing for this year’s expedition on their Facebook page.

You want to know the best bit, the thing that should really grab your attention? If you haven’t been scared off by the icy temperature there’s even a chance for you to join the three month take-over expedition leaving in December and returning in mid-February.

Head over to that Facebook page for more info, great videos and the chance for a once-in-a-lifetime trip to one of the world’s most remote outposts.

Good luck Padraig, we’ll be sure to tag you in a few pics of us sunning ourselves at the beach.