Today I was fortunate enough to get a seat on the herc going down the South Georgia. This trip happens quite infrequently, and for obvious reasons I can't say how often or the reason why. But there are about 25 seats in the back, and a few departments at work are allocated a space or two each time the trip happens. The met office are allocated two seats, and I was the lucky one who happened to have my day off scheduled for today.
It was an eight hour round trip, with no stops, but we saw some air to air refuelling (that's the job of the vc10 pictured) and once we got to the island we flew low level for about two hours, and we were each able to get clipped onto a harness, dangle out the open door of the herc, and take some pictures.
I have never seen anything like those views in my entire life, and probably never will. The only way you can get to South Georgia, unless with the military or some scientific research program, is to take a cruise ship from the Falklands. There is no airport on the island so it is the only way. We saw such a ship, and I have included a photo of it. Prices start at £3000 a ticket, and it is a three week sail from Falklands. Madness. So I was very privileged indeed.
I had never seen an iceberg before. And you could see the edge of the glaciers on the mountains. It felt so strange being in a place so remote and the views were just so beautiful I haven't done them justice with my camera. Apologies if some of the pictures are quite samey, I just couldn't choose which ones to put up!!!
Unfortunately I got rather travel sick. Thankfully I didn't actually vom, but I wasn't far off. So I went and chilled out in the cockpit drinking cups if tea for half hour or so and started to feel better. Normally we would each get chance to spend a bit of time in the cockpit anyway, but the brigadier was on board, so rightly so he hogged the good seat meaning we each only got a few minutes in there each.
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