Field Travel Travel Training - the last one! Day 3

Waking initially as snow fell on my face in the early hours of the morning I continued to drift in and out of sleep. The night brought with it the dump of the summer and I had been sleeping with my bivvy bag open! Lucky me! As the snow fell and continued to build up on the outer surface of the bivvy the weight would compress your sleeping bag until the cold would get the better of you and you would have to shake like a dog until it all fell off to the sides and the process started again.

 This is the coffin like trench where I slept! You can see the ground as that is what it looked like last night! New view from the camp at early hours.

 The walk through the transformed winter wonderland was just great on the way back to Davis Station! SW Edge of Lake Collerson, Perched Rock (it is a rock that perches precariously funnily enough), through the Portals, NW to Lake Dingle and under Sentinel Knoll before finishing off on the old favourite Dingle Road. Arriving at 09:45 just in time to drop off the poo bag to the incinerator before smoko! What a great trip to get in before I depart within a couple of weeks!

Crazy and crumpy penguin on the way home. Obviously forgot his map when he went for a walk!

Field Travel Travel Training - the last one! Day 2

 Me having a bad hair day obviously! Below is part of the massive Sorsdal Glacier.

 The hole that I mad with my ice axe to get water for lunch. The ice won that round as e adze broke off!

 We were ready for bed by about 18:00 but I headed up the hill with no takers for a poo with a view! Looking out over the Ellis Fjord and out to the ocean with the icebergs on the horizon as the sun set. There was a solar pillar tonight which was pretty cool as a pillar of sunlight the width of the setting sun shone towards the cloudy sky like the Batman floodlight (without the bat on it!). Getting back down to the frosty campsite there was not a movement by 19:30 so I readied for bed and watched the golden light move up the western facing side of Tarbuck Crag. Beautiful night with your head out of the bivvy!

Field Travel Travel Training - the last one!

 To make up for the fact that I missed another golden opportunity to head off with good weather yesterday after SAR training (there are no helicopters for ‘Jolly’ purposes anymore) a plan was hatched yesterday. There were a few crew coming in the flight to pick up the SAR team to Trajer and we would walk to the untouchable SE corners of the Vestfold’s. Unsuccessful we formulated a trip in the name of training the only winterer not to do travel training yet.

SAR Training on the Ice with Live Victims!

 More SAR training today which was good to see how much had been retained from last week. Today we had the full contingent and I looked after the crew on the ice while Mike was watching a crew on the rock at Trajer Ridge. We collectively had the rock group lower a stretcher to the bottom of a 70m slope which put it in a position to be raised up an icy slope.

 Packed up early as the Dr was off the station to drop a sick expeditioner to the Chinese to take home. This cancelled all field parties.

Amery for Data Downloads 2

 AMO5 in the middle of nowhere over nothing but 600metres of ice then water!

 As it was the winds were picking up and the sun was setting. Starting our return leg home we had a bit of a tail wind and were hooting across the Amery at 156knots (I am not sure of the conversion but it seemed very fast) stopping in at a fuel dump near one of the Russian bases on the way home for fuel. We had stopped at an Australian Apple Samson Island on the way down and would have used in excess of 1000 litres of fuel during the course of our flight. I shudder to think what that fuel costs per litre after it comes down from Australia and is then flown out by helicopter to the dump sites where it stays to enable flights to go further afield.

 Hanging onto the blades of the S76 so they don't flap around n the high winds!

 The sunset on the way home was just amazing but also hard to explain or take photos of through the tinted windows on the helicopter. We touched down at about 20:00 after a long and cold day.

Another night on the LIDAR!

Amery for Data Downloads 1

 • Polar Pyramid (party style tent impervious to harsh weather)(25kg)


• Cook box with stoves fuel and all the cleaning and cutlery (15kg)

• Water (20kg)

• Fuel (10kg)

• Generator (20kg)

• Sleeping gear and mats (15kg)

• AMISOR Tech box full of computer stuff and some tools (30kg)

• Survival packs X 2 as there were two of us (40kg)

• HF and Satellite Phone (15kgs)

• Me (fully clothed about 90kg) + Adam(fully clothed 95kg)

• Total 375kgs

 What a ridiculous amount of stuff to go on the helicopter for a four hour download! The download is from a site drilled with hot water last year that has a range of instruments at the bottom of the 600m hole in the ice. There are some loggers to record turbidity, temperature, salinity, conductivity and goodness knows what else. Most of these store their information at the device so the download takes a long time to retrieve as it is a very long cable, but some of them record on the surface. To complete the whole download at AM04 (Amery Ice Shelf sit 5) it would take about nine hours. We were dropped off for four and a half so could only get half of the data before having to return. With the unpredictability of the weather at the moment they are not prepared to leave people on the ice overnight as it is too close to the ships arrival to risk.

 I had to set up the tent and make sure that the tech was comfy and had assistance with anything that was needed. So hot drinks food and making sure that the tent was sorted in the wind as well as a bit of digging to find buried cables. It was a very strange feeling as the helicopter left us in the deepest of deep field locations and stuck on the middle of a massive ice shelf with only limited supplies. Makes you feel just how small you are in this world of Antarctica as if the winds picked up we may have missed the boat!

LIDAR and Aurora Australis Just Amazing!

 LIDAR is on and visible for the first time this season! This is not the first time that it has been on but it is the first time that you could actually see the eighty to ninety kilometre beam of green laser light travelling straight up into the ionosphere! Bloody fantastic and amazing to see as it really does not go on that much as there is often too much cloud and weather interference to see it or even to bother turning it on!

While I was taking the happy snaps the Aurora Australis or Southern Lights started to shine which was a rather spectacular and radiated wave of green cloud across the sky. It was all a bit much really having a near full moon, the laser and the aurora going at the same time. They seemed to originate from the north and headed towards the west in a random nature that is hard to describe. How lucky was I to be out there taking photo and it just jumped into a shot!

Day after the melon!

This is a part of Trajer ridge as you can see a very large drop if you fell off!

 Finally it was time to go and we were on our way in twenty knot winds to Crooked Lake Apple and then onto Watt’s Hut where we were to be picked up by helicopter. It was offered as our plans had been slowed down due to the winds which stalled our progress back to base! Great walking, and good to see the small changes that have happened along the way.

Here I am "Skating on thin ice"!

 Just a funky ice formation found on the walk.

A day in a Melon

Whole Day in a Melon! A whole day in a Melon that is right a whole day due to the ridiculous winds blowing outside we were trapped in the small fibreglass hut built for three. It was rather cosy but would have been far better should the day have included a bit of a walk towards our original plan of Boulder Hill!

After dinner most of us went up to view the sunset and moonrise from the top of a nearby hill almost being blown up it as we climbed to the top. Great view but still very windy to say the least! This was followed by yet another howling night in the Melon. I will add that the mattresses are terrible in the melons!

 After dinner most of us went up to view the sunset and moonrise from the top of a nearby hill almost being blown up it as we climbed to the top. Great view but still very windy to say the least! This was followed by yet another howling night in the Melon. I will add that the mattresses are terrible in the melons!

Woop Woop as a Weather Tech!

Another day of indecision! But wait I am going to Woop Woop, no going to go with the Scatman, but no actually to Woop Woop! OMG! How frustrating it is that the weather forecast seems to be all over the shop, it is just the Antarctic way.

 It was a max of -40C while we were up there so it was rather difficult to do fine motor skill with your gloves off for long periods or with your gloves on for that matter. Still it was really nice working on the roof of the workshop out in the sun and just great to get another look at the Ice Cap that is the true Antarctica.

 Above me excited about being off base again. Below is Nick working on taking down the broken generator.

 It was actually good fun doing a little bit of work like this as it was just easy to see progress and have a sense of satisfaction when it all goes together and works! Our ride to and from the Skiway was rather full as we had the AGSO (Air Ground Support Officer) doing some grooming on the skiway that has finished being used for the season, and a couple of free loaders along for the ride. This meant that the helicopter was as full as full both ways. To be fair, they did manage to lend a helping hand to our little project and to the AGSO throughout the course of the afternoon.

 There they are the twin 6watt generators to replace the 10watt one that was smashed over last winter! The smaller ones are supposed to be stronger and there is a chance only one will break at a time. Below is the helicopter after it has been tucked in for the night (tied down)!