‘I don’t feel right about saying goodbye without at least checking your frame of mind,’ Luke continued.
‘That’s why I’m doing this,’ Sophie explained. ‘I’m tired of people asking me how I am or, worse, saying nothing because they don’t know what to say. When Danny was killed my dreams died with him. It’s time for me to make some new dreams.’
For as long as she could remember she had always made three-year plans but the plans she’d made with Danny had come crashing down seven months ago and now she was a thirty-one-year-old widow. She needed a new plan.
‘I feel as though I should be trying harder to stop you,’ Luke said, ‘but I get the impression you’re not going to listen to me.’
Sophie smiled. ‘You’re right, but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate your concern.’
‘If you can look me in the eye and promise me you know what you’re doing, I’ll feel like I’ve kept my side of the bargain with Dan.’
‘I’ll be fine and I like to think Danny would be proud of me.’
Luke leaned over and kissed her cheek. ‘You’re right, he would be proud of you, I’m proud of you too. Just make sure you don’t do anything that makes me sorry I didn’t try harder to talk you out of this.’
‘Dr Thompson?’ Their conversation was interrupted by one of the nursing staff. ‘We’re ready for you now.’
Sophie stood and hugged Luke. ‘It’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. I promise,’ she said, before she followed the nurse off to Theatre.
Date: March 7th
Temperature: -7°C
Hours of sunlight: 13.9
THE SEAT BELT WAS pressing into Sophie’s still-tender abdomen and it was starting to irritate her now. Having had her appendix removed just a few days before her adventure wasn’t ideal but she’d had no other option.
She was determined to be on this plane and she hadn’t been about to let something as relatively minor as prophylactic surgery stop her. Any Australian doctor who wanted to work at one of the Antarctic stations had to have their appendix removed before they could be sent south. This clause didn’t apply to anyone else—the doctor would be able to remove anyone else’s troublesome appendix on the ice but the Australian Antarctic Programme didn’t want to risk the station doctor. The surgery was non-negotiable but in Sophie’s mind it was a relatively minor procedure and certainly something she had been happy to agree to. But she hadn’t expected the tenderness to last for so many days.
She undid her belt and stood up. She could stretch her legs and her abdominals at the same time. She wandered to the cockpit, seeking company. She was the sole passenger from Hobart to the Antarctic airfield. The plane would return filled with summer expeditioners heading home for the winter but on this leg she had the entire cabin to herself.
She’d spent most of the four-and-a-half-hour flight reading the numerous documents she’d been given, trying to work out which ones were the most important. Her trip had been fast-tracked and she knew she hadn’t had the same time to prepare as most others would have had. But she was tired of reading and it couldn’t be too much longer before they landed. It had been dark when they’d left Hobart but the sunrise had followed them as they’d flown west, eventually catching up with them, and Sophie had watched as the sky had turned pink and lightened as they’d flown over the ocean.
She knocked on the cockpit door, eager to check with the flight crew what their ETA was. She felt like a kid on a long car trip. ‘How much longer?’ She wanted to get the three-thousand-four-hundred-kilometre flight over and done with. She wanted to get to the ice.
‘Perfect timing,’ the pilot, said as he called her in. ‘Have a seat. We’ve just started spotting the first icebergs.’
Sophie took a seat behind the captain and co-pilot and peered through the cockpit windows. The sea was calm and flat, a pond of dark blue dotted with white. The icebergs were stunning, crisp, pure and brilliant and all different shapes and sizes. But the ice was not pure white, like she’d expected, but lit with myriad shades of blue—turquoise, aqua, a hint of cerulean and the palest sky blue.
It was a serene, perfect vista and Sophie was mesmerised. She could hardly believe she’d done it. What at times had seemed almost impossible was now only incredible. She was almost in Antarctica.
‘We should be landing in about thirty minutes.’ The captain interrupted her daydreaming. ‘The weather conditions look good, it should be a straightforward approach, but you should change into your survival clothing now. It will probably take you a while.’
Sophie had collected her red kitbag just prior to boarding the plane in Hobart. It contained the multiple layers she needed to wear to keep warm in the polar conditions. She’d had a brief lesson in getting dressed the previous day and she just hoped she remembered the order.
She returned to the cabin, pulled the bag out of the overhead locker and dumped the contents on her seat. She could feel the plane start its descent as she stripped off her shoes, sweatpants and jumper and pulled on thermal underwear before replacing the other layers. She stepped into her red waterproof pants, which were insulated with a down filling, making them rather cumbersome. She stuffed her shoes into the kitbag and then sat down to wrestle with the bulky insulated snow boots complete with thick rubber soles. She had some difficulty getting her feet into the boots—the puffy pants made bending awkward—but eventually she was able to lace up the white boots, which had the rather odd nickname of ‘bunny boots’. She slipped her arms into the padded jacket and tugged a neck warmer over her head but decided the beanie and gloves could wait. She gathered her hair in one hand and tucked it inside her jacket, where it hung down between her shoulder blades.
By the time she’d finished and returned to her seat she could see through the window that the vast expanse of ocean was giving way to an equally vast expanse of ice and snow in the distance. She searched the horizon for signs of life, for buildings or communication towers, something, anything, to indicate that the icy plateau was inhabited. She could see miles and miles of ice, snow and ocean and eventually a few small buildings, which looked no bigger than shipping containers cobbled together, came into view. That would be the airstrip.
She knew not to expect to see a traditional tarred runway but she was nervous. She could see nothing that remotely resembled a landing strip. She knew from the mandatory flight briefing she’d had the previous day that the plane would land on a specially built pack-ice runway three kilometres long, but that didn’t appease her nerves at all. She couldn’t fathom how something as big and heavy as this plane could land safely on a runway made of ice. The flight briefing had covered information on the flight and the runway, as well as several topics on safety and survival in the Antarctic, but that didn’t stop her from imagining the plane skidding out of control off the edge of the slippery landing strip.
She decided ignorance was bliss and turned away from the window, choosing not to watch as the plane approached the runway. She zipped up her jacket and dug her sunglasses out of her bag.
Standing at the top of the stairs, with the landing safely completed, the chill of the Antarctic autumn day took her by surprise. It was only minus seven degrees Celsius and the sun was shining, but the briskness of the wind on her face after the relative warmth of the plane was unexpected. She tugged her neck warmer up to cover the bottom half of her face and considered donning her beanie but opted just to pull the