SOUTH POLE VISIT

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29401, 31 December 1960, Page 12

SOUTH POLE VISIT

Capt. Champion Returns Lyttelton’s harbourmaster, Captain A, R. Champion, flew to the South Pole from McMurdo Sound for a 12-hour visit, but a busy work schedule for Antarctic planes and the wrong sort of weather kept him there for seven days. Captain Champion, who arrived back at Lyttelton from McMurdo Sound yesterday afternoon aboard the United States icebreaker Glacier, was the second New Zealand harbourmaster to visit the South Pole. Last season Captain D. M. Todd, from Wellington, flew from McMurdo Sound to the Pole aboard one of the first ski-equipped Hercules transpor; planes to land there, but his visit lasted only a couple of hours. A Hercules also took Captain Champion down. “I went down with Mr Arthur Beaumont, an American artist, and we were 'only going to stay for 12 hours,” he said last evening. “The next plane we saw was six days later, but it could not land because of cloud. It came back the next day.” Captain Champion said all the planes were being worked and one could not be spared to fly to the Pole station. The only thing that worried him was the altitude at the South Pole. “It’s 9500 feet but that is the same as 12,500 feet in New Zealand.” But he got his polar legs after three days. “At first I did a lot of puffing and seemed to be trying to grab extra air, but in three days I had settled down and it was quite enjoyable." While he was there temperatures ranged from minus 19 degrees down to minus 28 degrees. Filmed Artist Mr Beaumont painted and sketched during the stay al the South Pole and Captain Champion "Imed him with a. movie camera. “It was my first experience of covering anyone with a movie camera. The film will be used in an American film called ’The Lost Continent.’ In all I took about 1700 feel for Mr Beaumont." Captain Champion filled in the rest of his time drinking coffee, sitting around and “gave them a hand with a bit of carpentry on the new sick bay they are building.” It was Captain Champions second trip to the Antarctic. The first time he went down on the Glacier and flew back to Christchurch. This time he did the round trip in the Glacier.