11 December 2023:

For Fulton Hogan Antarctic team member, Cody Shultz, the thrill of going to Antarctica began before taking off from Christchurch Airport.  It was his first flight on an aeroplane.

“You have to say that’s pretty cool; your first plane trip and it takes you to the ice,” Cody says.

“This has been an experience of a lifetime and being my first time overseas makes it even more special.”

Cody and his teammates, Graduate Engineer Jack Kelleher and Portable Plant Operator Jamie Mead, are returning shortly after five weeks in Antarctica. They’ve been crushing 16,000m3 of AP65 for a building programme at McMurdo Base on behalf of the United States Antarctic Programme (USAP). It’s the third summer a Fulton Hogan crew has been on the ice.

Cody and Jack are shown here on the plant, at McMurdo Base.

Jack says it’s been a series of surprises: “Some days it was what you might expect – incredibly cold with very poor visibility requiring extreme cold weather clothing – and the next it is almost zero degrees and you’re wearing shorts.”

Each day began with a 90-minute process of heating the crushing machinery to make it operating-ready. The dry conditions and the weather increase wear on the machines, requiring more maintenance than expected, Jack says.

“It’s so remote down here and there are not a lot of spare parts, so you often just have to make do.”

The team have been running three Metso mobile crushing plants – a jaw crusher, cone crusher and screen – to produce AP65 for the base’s new heavy vehicle workshop.

“We all love what McMurdo has to offer in terms of the friendliness of the people, activities to do and the views from our site. There are activities on most nights, ranging from science lectures to even line dancing which Jamie got involved in,” Jack says.

“It has been an awesome opportunity and one we will never forget.”