All told, the three groups on this year's Nasa and US National Science Foundation-funded Antarctic Search for Meteorites (Ansmet) found more than 1000 space rocks, which Mr Norman said "was the best season we've had".
The inevitable question is why do they need so many?"If you keep on collecting, you will pick up a piece of moon, or even more rare, a very, very special piece of Mars," Mr Norman told the Otago Daily Times in December before the expedition departed.
Since 1976, Ansmet exploration teams have scoured areas of blue ice, searching in grids by foot and snowmobile to find the precious space rocks exposed on the surface by wind and glacial uplifting.
This season, there was speculation the team might very well have "found a Martian", Mr Norman (67) said on his return.
"Actually, I found that, which is remarkable, because I generally find about half of what the real collectors do. It was a little round, egg-shaped stone with lots of green in it, almost like greenstone. That's often a very good giveaway of Martian meteorites, so we're waiting with great anticipation to hear what that one turns out to be."
The meteorites were kept frozen and then transferred to deep-freezes at the team's American base, McMurdo's Crary Lab, where they will stay until they are transferred to the Johnson space facility in Texas.
From there, the meteorites will be catalogued as part of the estimated 20,000 retrieved by Ansmet.
The very special ones will be flown to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.
Despite the location of the search sites - on blue ice 2460m up at the edge of a plateau on the Beardmore Glacier - Mr Norman described the conditions as "really benign".
"Where our camp was, some days we even had calm, sunny mornings which was delightful. Most of the time it was about -15degC, -17degC ... some of the places where we were collecting weren't quite so pleasant - they were blowing 30 knots and so it wasn't that cold, but the wind chill factor really knocks you around, and quite quickly people get cold."
Mr Norman said his role on the trip as mountaineer and safety officer was to "keep the machines running properly and keep the people running properly" in the extreme environment.
"It's always being one step ahead ... and essentially making sure they're having a good time, because if they're having a good time they're going to achieve their objectives."
This included making sure the searchers took time to sleep and eat.
"They get so enthused in what they want to do - they will happily work 8, 10, 12, 16 hours a day, so you've got to back them off and say 'we're going home'."
The experts he was guiding were mainly PhDs in "pretty abstruse fields such as Martian rocks, astrophysics or astronomy - all related to meteorites" - but were also a nice bunch of people, he said.
This year's reconnaissance team included a female astronaut trainee.
Two trainees from previous expeditions have since visited the International Space Station.
"They're quite interesting people. Everything they do - all their food intake and their exercise - is taken down and they get exercise programmes to do regardless of whether they are in the tent or on the skidoo or whatever, so they can keep up their fitness."
The team's Antarctic assignment featured a southern white Christmas.
"We even had a little oven and we managed to get a turkey, so we actually roasted the turkey and had a genuine full-on Christmas dinner," he said.
For now, Mr Norman is enjoying being back in the "clean, green, warm and humid South Island" in Twizel, where he runs the High Country Expeditions guided tour company with wife Judy.
He is already making plans for his next adventure.
"This year I'll be going to Australia for two weeks to Mt Arapiles, which is in Western Victoria, so I fly to Melbourne and go from there. That's a gorgeous place - there's a great big crack that goes for about 500 feet up with hundreds and hundreds of climbing routes.
"Nice place to hang out and watch the kangaroos and emus do their thing while you're climbing."
Despite the heat of an antipodean summer, his thoughts have already turned back to the Antarctic, and Mr Norman is waiting to hear what is happening for next season's search for space rocks.
"I'm unsure as to how their funding stands, but I'm certainly hoping to [go back] as it's an interesting programme to get into, and it works.
"Sometimes it gets a bit tedious, but most of the time, there's always something new, something interesting.
"It's just a beautiful place to be in."
