Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - We chat to Paddy Gower about his exploration of Antarctica!

Episode Date: August 12, 2024

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The Hits, with the Jono and Ben podcast. Cheers to Dilma, making the world a better tea. Yeah, really good to be here. I went to Disney on Ice the other day. Is Paddy Gow on Ice anything like Disney on Ice? There isn't any, I'm not in a leotard. I'm not skating. Okay.

Because that was impressive. It was an impressive show. The screens, Mickey. High drama. Little Mickey and Minnie breakup. Yeah. What's happening? No, it seems like it all seriously is really really

interesting documentary that you're doing you go to antarctica for three weeks yes yeah yeah so three weeks i was down there at the end of last year what is it like there like is it surreal it is just so mind blown i remember i got out and i was just like you know effing hell you know yeah because you visualize it for ages and and then you get out, and it's just this massive white expanse. It's like a Trump rally. And then there's this blue skies, you know. So weird, guys. 24-hour-a-day sunlight.

So the sun just did not go down. Does that throw your circadian rhythm out? Yeah, your circadian rhythm. The cicadas were left way behind. I didn't see a cicada the whole time. Didn't see one cicada. No, there's no cicadas down in Antarctica. Were you actually speaking wildlife? I was reading something last night.

You were like, you thought you'd see polar bears, but obviously they don't live in Antarctica. Yeah, well, I learned that pretty quick. They're in the North Pole. So I was sitting around with all these scientists and sitting there on the first night. Oh, don't tell me you said it in front of them. Oh, no, I was just about to say it.

Where are the polar bears? And then the scientist goes, it's amazing how many dumbasses come down here thinking they're going to see a polar bear. And I was like, whoa. Save those idiots. Save, you know. I had to learn a lot about Antarctica.

And, you know, it was negative 35 degrees. And so we actually went camping on a beach. But the difference being, you know, we were right on a beach. The difference being that the sea was actually ice, a metre and a half thick. So, you know, there was no waves or water wasn't going to lap up or anything. We were just sort of camping there. Here I am in this tent in negative 35 degrees. Did you stay the night there or you stayed three nights there really and

you know you're in five um sleeping bags you know there's an outer layer another layer another layer another layer another layer then you've got to get the clothes that you've got and shove them inside your sleeping bag because if you leave them out overnight they'll freeze oh right so you got to keep them warm so then you sort of fill up your sleeping bag with all this warm kind of gear and then of course the first thing that happens when you're sitting there is you're like, oh I've got to go for my bedtime wee. Back yourself.

Peeing into a bottle situation too I imagine. So you just get your bottle, you know, you've actually got to take your wees back to the base at the end of it because it's a waste free environment. They don't want yellow snow or yellow ice. How many litres have you taking there? Quite a few.

Quite a few, yeah. Sorry for your listeners for explaining all the ways to go to the toilet. No, it's fascinating because, I mean, most of us will never get to go anywhere like that. Well, if you do go, take a pee bottle and a big one. What about all the polar bears? Aren't they peeing everywhere? Is it overwhelming in a place like that?

Because I can imagine hardly anyone lives there. Yeah, yeah, that's right. There's only around about 100 people on the Scott base and then you don't see people for ages when you're out on the ice. And of course, you know, it's white. It's just so white and it's just so massive

and you're just sort of standing there and I remember looking out one day and the sea was frozen and the top of an iceberg was frozen into the sea. You know, the sea's frozen around and locked an iceberg in. By the way, penguins actually stink. I went to a penguin colony. They're super cute, but they fart, they burp, they've got body odour.

It was one of the stinkiest places. So penguins en masse is quite smelly, is it? Yeah, penguin colony is not the kind of place you want to be. But they look so happy on happy feet. They're smelly feet as well. Yeah, so you know there was lots of cool stuff but yeah it was really overwhelming just the whiteness and the power of it all and the reason I was down there is you know the scientists are afraid that it's melting and that's a problem for all of us i didn't realize it guys but antarctica feeds into all of the world's major oceans it keeps the whole world cool it's like a um thermostat for the world oh wow and with it melting and changing and basically humans messing it up um it could all go and lead to four meters of sea level rise. Is it too far gone? No that's a really good

question John you know the scientists think hey maybe this is now we can't stop what's happening to Antarctica we've kicked it off and we can't actually put the genie back in the bottle and we may have to do sort of thing the kind of things they're talking about seemed really far out but they make a little bit of sense like you know why are we living so near the coastline in so many parts of New Zealand I'd have to change thatarctica does go so that was you know beneath all of the sort of beauty there's this incredible sort of power that it has over the world the whole thing looks about climate change and you know yeah and you're a very positive person you know how do you feel now i don't give everything away because you want people to watch it but do you

are there some things that could give you give you some hope to you know to turning things around yeah i think i think it's it's it's funny they were studying algae down there now algae is like moss and like it on your house like i'm spraying it and all that all the sort of time um but the scientists were studying it and they were saying it's a big part of antarctica and a big part of the sea you know algae and and they're looking at it in bits and it is changing. Algae is adapting the way that it lives to put up with warmer oceans. And I guess that's the hope, is that actually as humans, yep, things might change in our world, but we'll find a way to live with it.

Human nature, I guess, is what gave me hope amongst what was the changing of our nature. It sounds like a cliche, but you just realise how insignificant you are to the world. Yeah. Because three weeks is a long time. It's a long time. Do you ever think, well, that's maybe a bit too long ago?

Oh, no. I was like, yeah, I'm pretty keen to get out of here. I bet. And I was bunking as well. We were in a bunk room in the base. I haven't slept in a bunk bed since I was 12 with my cousin Stephen. And I was up on the top bank you know it was bloody hard to get up there yeah you know each night i was like time for bed you know like

normally at home you just slide into bed it's nice and relaxing you know here i am sort of like getting up to the getting up to the top bank so yeah it was it was a long time to be there but everything took such a long time to do you know to put on my clothes to go outside took me about 45 minutes you know so everything was really slow and then by the time you're outside and you're working so cold and then you finally get and you guys know how long it takes to get cameras and everything set up and you finally get ready to do an interview and then of course you get brain freeze you can't remember the questions wow so everything was just slow yeah yeah everything was super slow and it's not like oh yeah, I'll jot down something on my phone

and I'll look at that. Because actually it was too cold to get your phone out because you couldn't get your fingers out of your gloves. Jeez. So it was all those sorts of things. So it probably took about five times longer to make anything. But yeah, three weeks was a bloody long time. Fascinating.

Padigar on ice. Scott Bass, what is that like? Is that like a school camp? It's like a whole lot of your grandad's or uncle's sheds put together with links in between them. And yeah, like a school camp. And you actually go and

you eat breakfast, lunch and dinner, obviously. And then they'll have morning tea and afternoon tea. Basically, you go in and eat the whole time. You're so hungry working in the cold. It's so small that you do not get one moment of privacy every time you go somewhere bring family back home or something like that you think you found a little corner or somewhere you're about to go in someone else is already in there bringing their family

back home you know yeah you're sort of you got to get used to seeing people the whole time you go to bed your bunk mates there wanting to talk about um using a covid swab to get a sample of penguin poo um before you go to sleep. You know, this kind of thing. You know, you're sort of surrounded by people all the time. But, you know, you are, it was very inspiring because you are with adventurous people

who really want to push themselves to the limit. This might be a stupid question, but how does the plane land if it's all icy? They've got an ice runway there. They've got an ice runway there and it's a big American plane, gigantic american plane because the american base is there um so yeah there's an

ice runway they've done something with it it's a good good question i i didn't ask too many questions you're not like landing on ice it's just yeah we landed on ice it's all ice down there oh so you just slide yeah it's a packed uh runway of some kind and then taking off again would probably be tricky i didn't ask too many questions All I know is we landed and we took off. So quick. Yeah, I was like, good. Okay, yeah, yeah. That's what we wanted. You're from Wellington anyway.

That's probably like, it's probably a good day. Yeah, that's right. You're lucky to land in Wellington. It was not as bad as the landing there. It was not as bad as the landing there. Well, Petty Garland Ice, it seems so fascinating. A really fascinating documentary. Catch it on three and of course three now as well.

Lovely to see you, Petty. Yeah, awesome, guys. Thank you.