To Ascension Island

The overnight flight from Detroit to London was fine, as fine as any transatlantic flight ever is.  It's characterised by the phrase "Chicken or Pasta?"  We made our way to Oxford by bus, and spent the night in a guest room at our boys' boarding school.  On Sunday night we made our way to RAF Brize Norton, the base from which we were scheduled to fly to Ascension Island.  The other passengers were mostly service men and families, bound for the Falkland Islands.  The overnight flight (8.5 hours) arrived on time at Wideawake Airhead (yes, they really do call the airport the airhead!) a joint facility of the UK RAF and the USAF.  Its name derives from the wideawake bird, or sooty tern, that nests in huge colonies nearby.  Facilities there are minimal, to say the least, though the runway is long enough for an emergency shuttle landing. We were met by a relative of our St. Helena relative.  He is a native St. Helenian, who speaks a patois we have a great deal of difficulty understanding.  He gave us a brief tour of the area around Georgetown, the capital, pop. 400, (total island pop. 900) and took us to retrieve our rental car from the island's only gas station.  The car has no rear-view mirror (at least, it does, but it's in the glove compartment) and, unfortunately, one wing mirror fell off today.  However the car only costs £15/day. We are staying at the only hotel on Ascension, the Obsidian.  The hotel is definitely faded!  The island consists of about forty cinder cones, so at least the hotel name is apt. We drove out to an abandoned NASA station, used to track the Apollo spacecraft.  It was deserted in the 1980s and is pretty derelict, though the main building is still more-or-less standing. It is our considered opinion that the Americans might have cleaned up their mess before leaving. Now there is a lot of trash lying around, probably left by party-ers and those with nothing better to do than drive out to the NASA station with a buddy and a six-pack.

On the day

Today is the big day

We are leaving for our adventure this Friday, February 17th. Please follow our blog for updates on our adventures! xoxo M&J