“SUCCESSFUL YEAR”

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31497, 11 October 1967, Page 18

“SUCCESSFUL YEAR”

New Zealand’s scientific programme in the Antarctic in the last year had been most successful, said the retiring leader at Scott Base (Mr C. M. Clark) in Christchurch last evening. The base had been left in better shape for the new party to use, and all the members of the team were looking forward to the establishment of New Zealand’s second scientific station in the Wright Dry Valley. Mr Clark said he was pleased to have been the leader during the celebrations of the tenth year of New

Zealand's research activities in the Antarctic. “It was to us an event worthy of celebrating that New Zealand had been able to maintain a fairly substantial base there over the years. It was also a source of particular delight that this year one of our geological party discovered Antarctica’s second active volcano—Mount Melbourne,” he said. Mr Clark returned to Christchurch aboard a United States Navy Hercules which brought 20 Americans who had also wintered in the Antarctic. He was met at the airport by his mother, and his fiancee, Miss J. Knowling, of Christchurch. Mr Clark became engaged about a month before he went to the Antarctic.

Mr Clark said that he had now finished with expeditions and would settle down to more regular work. In the last eight years he has taken part in expeditions to the Campbell Islands, the Auckland Islands, Raoul Island, the Kermadecs, and the Cook Islands. When he left Scott Base at 11 a.m. yesterday it was particularly cold for this time Of the year—there was 69 degrees of frost The photograph shows the incoming leader, Mr W. J. Webb, of Invereargill, raising the New Zealand flag at Scott Base last Friday. Looking on is Mr Clark. Mr Clark will keep the flag he is holding as a memento.