Thanks, that's an unusual route to go to get to Antarctica even if in the very South Pacific, but no doubt they had their operational reasons. Those ex-USSR aircraft get just about everywhere!

I see you were looking for the Birdman in one of your previous photos ?

To Easter Island it's shorter going via the Pacific - and the other way takes you through the Middle East and W & C Africa - I can see why they decided to travel the civilised route

Didn't see the BirdMan - just lots of large garden ornaments

I suppose that a Far-Eastern country would probably route that way, nobody needs to go through the M.E/Africa and it's issues if you don't have to, although that said IL-76's do supply runs out of Cape Town to/from Antarctica.

Your non-aviation photo seemed to be from Orongo. Yes lots of very large garden ornaments strewn around the place ;-)