Discovery Hut

Like I had mentioned in my last post, we are located right next to Scott's original Hut. They have named this building Discovery Hut. This building remains locked for historical purposes and is opened when Tours are given to groups of people.
I just happen to be lucky enough to know the Recreation Coordinator (Erin) and she let me follow along one day on a private tour through the building.
Just to describe a little bit about the inside of this hut, so you can get an idea of what it was like to be in there: It structurally reminds me of a barn, all wood, vaulted ceilings, not much insulation. I would guess its about 1200 square feet of open space and different areas are divided up by big tarps and blankets. There is an old, rotting smell that reminds me of horse stables, not unbearable but definitely smelly. Almost everything is frozen it time, everything has been left the way we found it and nothing has been refurbished.
Fair warning, some of the pictures you are about to see include bones, carcases, and unidentified animals hanging on walls....you have been warned.


Enjoy the pictures!

This is an amazing piece of history and I am so lucky to have been able to see this with my own eyes. There are only about 20 historical Huts in all of Antarctica and I get to see one of the most famous ones.

Autumn :)

Hut Point

Back about 100 years ago, a man by the name of Robert Falcon Scott sailed to Antarctica on a journey to be the first man to reach the South Pole. A man by the name of Amundsen beat him there by about a month, but that's not the point! Scott found himself on Ross Island and set up camp.
McMurdo Station currently resides on Ross Island about a 1/2 mile from Scott's original Hut. The Hut still stands to this day and all McMurdo residents are welcome to walk out to Hut Point and check out the views and the outside of the building. Its about a 15-20 minute walk out there and if you are lucky, sometimes the seals will have come up through the ice cracks, and this is a prime spot to look out into the ice and watch them lay there and do nothing.....really, they just lay there and breath.
I have been out to Hut Point 3-4 times so far and its always nice to get out of town for about an hour or so.