Dec 26 - Horsing around in the Katabatic

Had an early morning trip out to Welch Island - about 8km from Mawson and a mere 150 metre high, to try to get a nice early morning photo of the station. We left at 4.30 (having got to sleep at 2) and drove out over the nearly-melted sea-ice to get there. That was a bit hairy - getting on & off the ice edge from the land means negotiating the weakest parts of the ice, which is also rafted up against the rock, with cracks & so on, but fortunately the surface melt had refrozen overnight. We tore out there into the teeth of the katabatic wind - powerful gravity-fed winds which come up every morning here at Mawson and I had forgotten about . It was only about 40 knots when we left but increased as we climbed up the hill. By about 50 metres altitude the wind seemed to be well over 50 knots and we called it quits 2/3 of the way up, when we were afraid of being blown away. In any case, we could barely hold a camera to take a picture. It wasn't that cold - about 1 degree, but the wind was ridiculous.

Dec 17 - Head Butt Antarctica

It is a protest - against all the things in modern life that we
cannot do. Crossing the road against the light, roundabouts,
"security" screening at airports. It is ridiculous.

There are so many rules, so many impossibilities.

So we choose to push against the solidity of Antarctic Immensity with
our heads.

Why cannot I move this glacier with my head? I protest!

Dec 24 - The Mawson Christmas Photo

Midday at Mawson Station, Christmas Eve, 2008

Front Row: Kym Newbery, Tony D'Amico, Mike Staples, Barry O'Neill,
Jasmine Barber, Tubby Gillies, Doug Braid, Bob Sheehy, Peter Schuller

2nd Row: Hully, Aaron Faulds, Kevin Gunn, Geoff, Dave Gurney, Andrew Winchester, Darren Southwell,
Dave Wilson, Ben Spencer, Tom Clarke, Jeremy Wills, Nathan Saunders, Lee Sice, Matt Longmire & Peter Hackworth

Dec 20 - A walk up Mt Henderson

On Saturday afternoon, myself, Matt (comms) and David (biologist)
drove out on quad bikes to Mt Henderson, about 20km inland, where
there is a little hut to stay in alongside the mountain.

After having dinner (reheated chick pea & vege curry) and a little
rest, we set out to climb the mountain at about 9:30 pm.

The weather was fine - very clear, no wind and about 1 degree.

The hut is about 500 metres altitude and the summit about 800, and it took about an hour. The rock was fairly steep, but easy enough to walk on at first but it soon developed into scree which I hate walking on, then some thin snow over rock which I hate even more, since you never know what's underneath with the risk of slipping down the steep slope.

Finally we got to the notch near the summit, which was nice bare rock, and had a break before scrambling up the last 20 metres, through a few narrow cracks until suddenly we were on the summit with magnificent views.

To the north - towards Mawson, you can see the ice plateau dipping down to the sea in which hundred of icebergs are trapped in the sea ice. To the west, with the sun low in the sky (about 11pm in the photo), we could see the other mountain ranges, and inland, just the featureless ice plateau extending inwards forever.

Dec 19 - A Drive to Welch Island after dinner

After dinner a group of us decided to make the short trip out to Welch island, about 5 km from Mawson station. The easiest and most fun way in the clear weather was to drive over the sea-ice on the quad bikes and we parked on the far side of the island before walking up along the ridge from the north. the ride was made a little slower by having to cross of few minor tide-cracks, where the ice is pressed up into ridges. The view back to station doesn't quite show our tracks (which were off to the right of frame), but one long large tide crack is visible to the bottom right.

Welch Island, named after the engineer on Scott & Shackleton's ship the RRS Discovery, is only 130m high - so it's a perfect after-dinner stroll all trussed up in our multiple layers of clothes. At the summit, you can clearly see the main local mountain ranges - from the left is Mt Henderson, then in the centre is the Central and North Masson Ranges (which includes Rumdoodle Peak) and then on the right is the David Range which includes Fang Peak. The more distant ones on the right are probably Mt Hordern & Tritoppen.

The ride back was magnificent - the sun was golden/pink, and we scooted back on the ice close to the land - a more direct route back.

Dec 18 - The hydroponics facility

In order to have some fresh herbs, vegetables and fruit, we have a
small hydroponics "building". Lit by special hot orange hydroponics
lights, with electronically timed pumps, and running at 25 degrees
and 70% humidity, we have tomatoes, basil, lettuce, bok choy and
a strange zucchini like object that I was unable to identify.

For some reason, it periodically floods the floor with electrolyte-
rich nutrient water which requires some enthusiastic mopping up, but
at least the floor is clean. It's a bit like being back in Cairns in the
wet season (without the frogs) only with a greater contrast - one moment you're wandering around outside in icy winds, and then next you are getting all steamy as you walk in the door surrounded by greenery.

There are no insects at all here - in fact to get the fruit from tomatoes and zucchini etc you have to hand-pollinate the flowers. the lack of insects has another advantage - you can just leave chocolate out on your desk and in the morning it is just as you left it - no ants.

Although it is just 2 shipping containers joined together, with a bunch of lights and water, stuff grows very quickly indeed in these sort of setups. In commercial hydroponics gardens, the output is approximately 10 times as much as conventional gardening for the same area while using significantly less water.

There are about 4 or 5 people who will share the load of this job over the year, but since the doctor often has a fair degree of input, as part of my handover 2 weeks ago, I "put
in" a tub of Cos lettuce, which is coming along quite nicely.

Of course, Cos lettuce is, in my opinion, a particularly pointless
variety to grow, since it has little flavour. Rocket would be much better and I intend to do that next, along with much more basil, no
parsley and try get those tomato bushes into a state of adequate
prunage.

Dec 18 - Welch Island Penguin Camss

One of the techniques used by the biologists to monitor penguin
numbers and to ascertain how successful their breeding is each year,
is to have some clever Penguin-Cams installed at their rookeries.
Developed by Kym Newbery, resident evil genius, they take one
photo a day until December 26, then 10 photos a day until the end of February. The 26th is the magic day for when almost all of the eggs have hatched, and frequent photos are required to get at least one each day when the chicks are visible. Then the penguin boys examine the photos and determine which nests have chicks in them and how many of those chicks survive to fledge.

Some of the chicks have hatched over the previous week, so you can just hear faint little chirp chrip sounds amongst the rest of the squawkin gof the rookery.

The cameras are Canon 350D SLRs - inside a modified Pelican-
case, which also houses the electronics. There is a gel-tin-lead battery which is recharged by a flexible solar panel, and at the end of the season, all you need to do is swap the memory cards over and take them with you on the ship. By the time you get back to Hobart, you've analysed a good part of the pictures and managed to cover many more rookeries than you could if you had to do it all in person.

More on Kym's penguin-cams shortly...

Dec 15 - Mawson Station

Location: 67°36' S 62°52' E

Mawson station was first established in 1954, and the first building was the pre-fabricated "Biscoe Hut" which was one of three originally built for the 1949-52 Norwegian-Swedish-British Antarctic (NSB) expedition to Queen Maud Land and which they did not need as planned. It is visible in the first picture as the green-roofed low hut centre-right and is the only 1 of the three still remaining - the others having slid off glaciers into the sea some time ago. the rest of the metal huts in this photo are of a later 1960-70's era and were often so snowed in that the only way to get out was through the roof - a tedious and unpleasant way to get to dinner during a blizzard.

Today, the modern buildings built in the 80's are very luxurious - heated, weatherproof, snooker table etc. The large red one to the right is the mechanics workshop; the others are all behind the photographer. This photo also shows the dome over the satellite dish (which is pointing almost horizontal to camera right - our latitude being so far south that the geostationary satellite is almost on the horizon). At the top of the hill is the Aeronomy building, where several long-standing scientific observation experiments are housed and to the left is one of the two wind turbine generator which supply about 50% of the station's' power requirements.

The second photo shows the interior of the "Green Shed" which is where most of the stores are kept. That includes all sorts of consumable and food and frozen lamb for in excess of 12 months in case a supply ship can't get through the following year.

Dec 14 - Penguin tagging at Bechervaise Island

I accompanied Dave & Darren, the two penguin chappies out to
Bechervaise island today, along with Kym for technical support and
the peculiarly nicknamed Matt "Cheeselips" Longmire.

The first penguin caught needed to have a microchip inserted under
his neck skin, first they had ot be sure it was male, and the only
way of checking is to insert an anal dilator, then look for a series
of characteristic ridges inside. How odd.

Then we caught 12 of the older penguins to attach satellite tracking
devices to their backs. They choose older penguins (all penguins here
have been previously microchipped and so their age is known) as they
have a better survival rate so they will get better data. They are
very easy to catch as they refuse to leave their nests. Each of them
have 2 eggs, which are probably half again as long and wide as large
chicken eggs and a pale blueish colour and they are about 10 to 14
days from hatching. All th ones on eggs now are males as they take it
in strict turns - the females first, then after 10 days they swap and
the other goes fishing. To catch, you just walk up to them - they
peck at you ferociously - and lift them up, tucking the head under
your arm. Your assistant then puts a nice cotton head-cap over them
so they can't see and hn they calm down a little. Anotehr assistant
(me) then gets the 2 eggs, and puts them inside a small Esky on top
of a tea towel which is, in turn, on top of a hot water bottle. Their
rocky nest is then covered by a black cotton cloth, weighed down at
each corner by a rock, so that the smaller rocks that make up their
nest so not get pilfered by the neighbouring penguins.

The penguin is then taken a few metres away and the rear of the
feathers cleaned, then the small transmitter is glued on with
superglue, then to be sure, plastic ring-pull ties are added about
the transmitter and their deeper feathers. A bit more glue to the
plastic ties and then the bird is painted an identifying letter on
its front, and returned ot the nest, with the eggs being carefully
replaced. Once you put them down, and remove the hood, they
squawk and run around a bit before quickly returning to the nest and getting back on the eggs.

It all happens fairly quickly.

In the meantime, the chaps holding the birds get shit all over them,
and the paint-dye all over their hands, adn we all get a bit worn out
and tired, running on not much more than peanut butter and crackers.

Dec 9 - Auster rookery

Had a second chance to go out to Auster rookery today, this time on
quad bikes with Hully and Jeremy. We set out at about 9:00, but the
55km journey was difficult over lots of soft snow causing us to get
bogged a few times. We arrived at about 1pm, ate lunch watching one
of the 4 or 5 main groups and then took some pictures, relocated to
another group for half an hour and then had to start heading back.

As we were leaving, one chick which was a bit separate from the
crowd came over to have a closer look, every now and then
throwing his head back and letting off some noisy squawks.
He kept coming closer, just a few metres at a time - as he got to about 2 or 3 metres from us, two adults came towards him - keeping their distance from us. The chick started to walk forwards again when one of the adults ran out at him suddenly, squawking, as if to stop him approaching us, so he moved off a bit and lay down in the sun, the two adults just standing quietly next to him.

At that point we left, for the 2.5 hour return journey.

Dec 8 - The Beche Boys

This weekend saw the Bechervaise Island Penguin Monitoring Boys
preparing for the imminent sea-ice break up. These two
intrepid Antarctic heroes will be marooned for 4 to 6 weeks
in the wilds of Bechervaise Island until the sea-ice breaks out and
the boats can come and get them.

Having enough food is essential to maintain morale over the long
isolation period, and a balanced diet is an important part of this
(scientific theory says that you should eat the same volume of each
food). That meant lugging 400 litres of water and some heavy LPG gas
cylinders up the hill to their luxurious accommodation, along with 6
weeks of peanut butter, pesto sauce and tinned peaches – the staple
diet of penguin biologists.

They have also been busy investigating alternative transport methods
in case the sea-ice remains and the boats aren't required. While
small, the humble frying pan was found to be the most effective
cooking utensil when moving large amounts of gear (or people) between
station and the island. Interestingly, pizza trays fared badly,
despite their apparent suitability. Clearly more work is needed in
this area before a utensil is found that is both functional in the
kitchen and a viable form of transport.

Amongst this furious preparation they still find time to count
penguins and late last night had reached the magical number of 3^9.

Dec 6 - Blizzard Boys

Today the blizzard arrived. By mid morning the wind was picking up
and the snow was blowing about, so we could barely see the wind
turbines. By afternoon, we could barely see 20 metres, then after
dinner, with the wind gusting to 65 knots, Darren & I thought we
should go for a bit of a walk outside to the hydroponics shed. It is
about 20 metres from the door of the living quarters, and ropes are
permanently tied to help guide you in such conditions, first to the
smoker's hut, then to hydroponics. I carefully trussed up my video
camera inside a plastic bag, and we set out, making a documentary
of the grand event. Stills were taken from a nearby bedroom
window using the famous Antarctic Winter Cam.

I got to the bottom of the stairs, then was promptly blown over,
but, still filming, we carried on in the grand tradition of Antarctic
Exploration as far as the smoker's hut, when we decided we had
better turn back.

By the time we got back (about 5 minutes later), my glasses were
completely iced over, the camera was covered in icy snow and my
fingers were freezing.

Mawson would have been proud of us.

Dec 5 - After dinner walk

Went for a little stroll after dinner tonight - Mike & I stuck on our
chains over our boots, got out ice axes & throw ropes and went out
just past East arm onto the ice, around the small nearby island where
a weddell seal just looked at us, then came back out the back of the
iceberg in the harbour (keeping our distance) and then back in. It
was about 1 degree, but at 9 pm it was very sunny so it was just
jeans & shirtsleeve weather. Of course, we took jackets, windproof stuff and gloves, all of which are cunningly outside this oh-so-casual photograph.

If this warm weather keeps up, the ice may start to thaw very
quickly, so we need to make the most of it while it lasts.

Dec 4 - The Iceberg in the Harbour

One of the reasons Mawson Station was built where it was (in 1954),
is that it is has a very nice sheltered harbour in a horseshoe shape,
known, fortuitously, as "Horseshoe Harbour". The straits out in front
have quite rapid currents, and when the sea ice has melted, icebergs
trail down through there so it would not be a very good place to moor a ship.

In 1980, one iceberg floated into Horseshoe Harbour and became lodged there, and was frozen in place for the winter, but then did't float back out the next summer. This had obvious implications for the re-supply, particularly the fuel resupply which is via a long pipeline. They made several attempts to move it, attempting to lasso it and winch it to one side (nothing happened but the ropes would snap), even dynamiting it (a muffled bang, a puff of smoke and a shower of ice leaving a charred divot the size of a bathtub in the ice). When the current shifted it to one side, they tried to at least tether it there until the resupply ship had been through, and tied it up with various ropes.

One night, it went for a bit of a wander through the harbour by itself and the ropes knocked over several radio antennas, so not even that worked.

Eventually the thing just left one night, to be rediscovered 200km along the coast months later, still nicely-wrapped up in ropes.

Well, it's happened again. Last March, just after resupply, a little berg arrived and promptly got stuck right in the middle of the mouth of the harbour. It's been there all winter, and the thaw of the sea-ice is only just starting now. With luck, it will leave once the ice has thawed, but if it remains stuck firmly on the little ridge underwater, we may have a tricky re-supply process in February.

Dec 3 - The Mawson Ice Plateau

We went for a drive up onto the plateau today, to look at some of the
huts to be used in the field-training over the next few weeks.
Normally, because of the high winds at Mawson, the plateau is just a big dome of ice, but at present there is a thin layer of snow over the top. In most areas, it is only a few cm thick, so that when you ride over it, the tyres break though the snow and the ice shows through.

The peculiar thing is that when you look under the bike at the tyre-tracks in the shade, the bits of ice showing through are actually glowing brighter than the surrounding snow. There is so much light bouncing around in this enormous great lump of glassy ice, that we are being lit from below as well.

Nov 29 - Very fluffy indeed

Gary Miller, one of the biologists studying the Emporer Penguins,
and who was also the penguin advisor to Happy Feet, took us
for a drive out to Auster rookery.

The only access is by driving 50km over the sea ice, which will melt
out sometime in the next few weeks, and I had almost given up hope
of getting there at all.

The trip was very impressive, despite it being overcast and windy,
past hundreds of enormous icebergs all held in place by the frozen
sea. Everythign is ice. The 'ground' is frozen sea ice, the arrays of
giant icebergs down each side look like great long mountain ranges
entirely made of ice, there was the odd patch of non-frozen water
visible in a few cracks near the icebergs, invariably with seals
resting alongside.

The rookeries have a few thousand Emperor penguins and
their 4-month old chicks, all looking incredibly fluffy.
Which they are. Very fluffy indeed.

Nov 29 - Flight from Davis to Mawson

After 4 weeks of travel and 3 weeks waiting at Davis for a break in
the weather, the Mawson 2008-9 crew finally started to make an
appearance at Mawson.

The first trip was yesterday (both S76 helicopters fly together in
case one has a problem), and then today, after a cancellation at
0700, at 14:00 we were off at last.

Why did it take so long? In part, we've just been unlucky with
weather, but the reason for that is because the 4-hour flight from
Davis to Mawson takes in several diverse areas each with different
weather patterns. Therefore, when it was fine in Davis, it often
wasn't at Mawson, or it was fine at both ends but in between it was
bad. The helicopters are not rated to fly in snow, and need to have
good visibility of the ground as well for the whole distance, which
is about 300 nautical miles.

The first part of the flight is to Sansom island, named after the
doctor on the 1968 Amery Ice Shelf expedition. It's a small rocky
island just off the mainland, right beside the enormous Amery Ice
Shelf which has a whole pile of helicopter fuel drums on it and one
small "apple" hut. After topping up the fuel tanks, we headed off
across the Amery, a great chunk of featureless 300 metre thick ice
floating in the sea, extending two hundred km across. Although
remarkable for its sheer magnitude, it was fairly dull to experience,
since you might as well have been just flying over a great sheet of
cloud.

Eventually we could see distant mountain ranges and the sea on the
horizon, and the helicopter started to climb up over the continent,
maintaining about a 1500 foot altitude over the surface the entire way.

By the time we got to 5000 feet, it was about minus 12 in the cabin,
so my toes were starting to get a bit chilly, but after a quick fly
past the nearby mountains, we landed at Mawson to be greeted by
the 2008 winterers.

Nov 27 - The washing, the drying

Despite being surrounded by fresh water in the form of ice, drinking
water at Davis is in scarce supply, mainly since during the summer
there is no close supply of fresh glacier to melt. As a result, we
are limited to one three-minute shower every 3rd day, and 1 load of
washing per week.

This summer, one of the projects keeping the plumbers & electricians
busy is installation of a new Reverse-Osmosis water system to
generate potable water from a small hypersaline lake on the edge of
the station.

Mawson Station leader Peter Hackworth is seen returning to the
accomodation with his laundry, after washing it in a very nice low-
water-usage front-loading commercial washing machine.

Antarctica contains a LOT of ice - in total over 30 million cubic km
== 30,000,000,000,000,000,000 litres of ice. That is 70% of the
world's fresh water.
( http://naturalscience.com/ns/articles/01-06/ns_clh.html )

That would be enough for Peter to do his laundry (about 50 litres)
and everyone else's on base, 5 times a day, for about 300,000 million
years.

Nov 26 - The Basler Aircraft

Certainly one of the more handsome aircraft I've seen for a while is
the Basler aircraft which is being used for the AGAP project - a
multinational project to radar-image the buried mountain range
below the ice cap. ( http://www.aad.gov.au/default.asp?casid=35372 )

The Basler is a converted DC-3 - the old piston-engines are replaced
by modern PT6 Turboprops, which give much more thrust and weigh
much less. As a result, the centre of gravity of the aircraft shifts,
which needs to be corrected. They cunningly do this by extending the
fuselage fore of the wings by a few metres to add extra room for seats.

Then they paint it with a snazzy red & blue stripey colour scheme and
take off.

The picture here is of the Basler at the Plough Island sea-ice runway
- just 20 minutes drive from Davis Station.

Nov 23 - A trip out on the sea ice (again)

After recovering from our Big Walk yesterday today was a restful
Sunday. After lunch a couple of us decided to go for a drive out on
the ice on the quad bikes. We stopped just out the front to look at
one of the mad scientists sampling some snow while she is radar-
scanning it (the famed Sea-Ice-Radar project) but the journey ended
shortly afterwards when my bike stalled and wouldn't start. As usual,
as soon as we stopped, a bunch of penguins about 300m away started
running towards us to investigate. The stayed a few minutes, flapped
their flippers and then left. We towed the bike back to station.

Nov 21-22 Walk to Brooke's Hut via Deep lake

A Short Walk in the Vestfold Hills - Part of our field "survival
training" included this 13 km walk through knee-deep snowdrifts and
then over rock and ice for a few hours, navigating by map & compass.
It was fairly hard work, mainly as a result of my general
slothfulness over the last few months.

The moment we got to a really unpleasant windy spot, we sat down for
lunch. It was snowing and blowing and cold, so we set up the "mega-
bivvy" - a big bag made of rip-stop nylon that we could all crawl
inside to eat our sandwiches. We continued on past Lake Stinear and
eventually got to and tasted the water from Deep Lake. Deep Lake is
41 metres below sea level and hyper-saline, so it will only freeze at
about -30C. You could use it to treat cerebral oedema, if it weren't
for the penguins swimming in it.

Another hour on we finally got to our destination, Brooke's Hut, and
had a cup of tea and sit about a bit, but for training purposes we
had to cook outside and eat outside and sleep outside in our "bivvy"
- much the same as the mega-bivvy but, would you believe, smaller. Of
course it was a very uncomfortable night, sleeping with our sleeping
bags on a mat on the snow with a big nylon bag collapsing over you
all night, but at least it was warm and wasn't too windy. The
condensation from your breath all night made the interior quite damp
- it wasn't cold enough to freeze - so by morning from the outside we
all looked like multicoloured wet slugs out on the snow.

Then we walked back over the sea ice, inspected by penguins as we
did, and past the odd freeze-dried seal carcase, back in time for
lunch and the shower we are allowed every 3 days.

Nov 20 - The Jiffy Drill

There is a 'Tide Gauge' just off the shore at Davis, which sits on the ocean floor recording the pressure of the water over it to memory and which needs to be downloaded each year. This involves drilling a hole in the 2 metre thick ice 25 cm across (with a motorised 'Jiffy Drill', then poking about under the ice with a camera on the end of a 3 metre bamboo pole to find it, sweep the muck (and sea-worms) off it with a broom attached to the end of the bamboo pole, then lowering the data-collection device onto the top of it.

This may sound tricky, but it is even worse when you try to do it. If you're even a metre off from it, you can't reach it via the long thin
drill-hole and you have to drill another one.

The big red Hagglunds vehicle carried out the equipment, and serves as a wind-break and as something to stand on when starting the
drilling with the 2 metre drill-bit.

After about an hour and a half, having possibly located the little devil, we gave up, to come back another another day.

Nov 19 - A short walk onto the sea ice

All us Mawson crew are still stuck at Davis Station - waiting for
suitable weather to fly there. These helicopters aren't really the
most robust way of getting about down here. It seems that each
Wednesday they say "maybe Saturday" and on Saturday they say "maybe tomorrow" then on Sunday they say "maybe Wednesday".

I went for a little walk out the back today to see what a couple of
the guys were doing drilling about in the ice. As soon as i got to
them they said they'd forgotten the "Jiffy drill", so we all headed
back. Not a wasted trip, as you can see from the little gem i discovered on the way back to the base. It turns out that it is the work of one Stephen Eastaugh, an artist who was here in 2003, this one is the "Bonsai Donga".

You can see the weather is really not conducive to flying.

Nov 18 - Walk to Davis Point

Went on a short walk to 'the point' today. Penguins, dessicated seal
carcass, even a bit of seaweed. It snowed, it was minus 8 and a
little bit windy. I went and had a cup of tea.

Nov 17 - Water Quality Testing

It would be misleading to say that I have been flat-out with medical
work since being here at Davis, since after all, the Davis doctor,
Madeleine, is seeing most of the patients anyway. I generally only
see problems that the guys going to Mawson have, and so far that has
been reasonably quiet.

However, today we did do the water-quality testing, which involves
testing the tap water in various parts of the building for pH,
conductivity, and bacterial growth. It's a fairly dull procedure
which takes several hours, and I don't think that it has ever been no
good. But it makes a change from re-stocking the surgery with
the new drugs.

No photos today - but this photo shows me hard at work in Hobart a
month ago, learning how to do the water quality testing. I look very professional don't I?