So on the 17th Nov we started moving expeditioners off the Aurora in groups of around 10. The Marine Science team that I'm a part of lost our leader early on in the picture, as he was loaded into a Hag(glund) and taken into station in the morning. I spent a good part of the day jumping around excited that we'd finally made it, and probably equally excited that there was a bar full of homebrew about 3km from the ship. As announcements were made over the course of the day, the ship started to feel like a ghost town, with just 8 of us left that were meant to be sleeping on shore, plus a few of the tradies that were staying on the ship during resupply drifting in and out, but even they had already spent a significant amount of time walking around on the ice, looking out over long distances that they could walk to, rather than cooped up in the mess or on the trawl treck. At around 4, the word was passed around that rather than getting to Davis tonight, the rest of us would be sleeping on the ship again. My stomach dropped through the floor- we were told that we'd be able to head in to the bar for a couple of hours after dinner, but that wasn't what I was waiting for. Personal space and land underfoot had been wafter under our noses all day and then.... to say we were disappointed is possibly an understatement, but I think we took it rather stoically, at least externally (ok, I may have put my head in my hands on the table once the Voyage Leader departed)
... so we sat, and we did crosswords, and we looked out the window at the others who were playing in the ice while curious Adelie penguins wandered over to check out what was going on. It sucked. We wanted to meet new people, and at least 2 of our team wanted to get to station to see their significant others, who they hadn't seen in 10 months. Then, out of the blue, the VL approached us again at 4:45pm, and said that the station leader had given permission for us to walk in after dinner, and to stay the night! I managed to force myself to eat in the little time that I could stand to sit still again, then we climbed down off the ship that had been our home for 4 weeks and stepped out onto the fast ice. After a 3km hike to station along the road that had been cleared in the ice, we had our induction tour, then settled into Nina's to meet the 2010 winterers, and start to settle into our new home.
The following day, the Marine Science Team started to set up the Aquarium, or the Salmon Farm as it's affectionately known. A group of us traipsed down past the Green Store, the SPAZ, alongside the yellow biological sciences building then past the blue MET building (where the trusty Observers throw out a hydrogen filled weather balloon twice at day) and down the hill to the little white building that's out of sight and earshot of the rest of the station. After cleaning it out in the morning, it was our job to start and connect the components together in the afternoon, while some other team members ducked off to go through a container of old science supplies to see what they could scavenge. While we were in the aquarium, happily moving equipment around and connecting piping, one of the tradies came past and popped in to check how we were doing. As he left, he shut the door fully, with an ominous click. I asked if that meant that we were now locked in, but was reassured that there was nothing to worry about. 10 minutes later, we finshed our work for the day, and put our gloves and jackets on to get going, and I reached for the door- which wouldn't open. The outside of the door has a handle that you pull on a lever, but the inside of the door has only a rod with a green cap on it, which is supposed to slide through the door and adjust the handle on the outside- unfortunately, after -30C temperatures over winter, the mechanism had stuck. The bell on the door, which is pretty much an old fashioned bicycle bell, had also rusted. Fortunately, there is a phone in the aquarium, so we called the science building, where we were laughed at and told that we weren't really locked in- so while we were on loudspeaker getting instructions on how to open a door (that's right, postgrad students being talked through how to open a door), I again pushed the rod into the door as far as it would go (halfway) and then following instructions, REALLY put my shoulder into it. This was followed by a lot of yelping and expletives, and the idea that perhaps someone really should be sent down to let us out... which happened much to our relief (and our rescuers' amusement) some 5 minutes later.
On the 19th, Lara, Ash and I were sent out for Survival Training with the FTOs (field training officers), Rachael, and some of the guys that are meant to be heading to Mawson as soon as the weather is good enough for flying. At 11am we met up at the Field Store and got our things together, including our bivvies for sleeping outside, our dehydrated rations, and our pee bottles (everything we take in, we carry out again). We checked out of the station after lunch, and started the 11km walk over to Brookes Hut via Deep Lake- a lake which is 52m below sea level, and 6x more saline than sea water. The terrain was glacial moraine through the Vestfold Hills, with snow and icenamongst scattered rocks and boulders, and at times thigh deep drifts that we waded through. Unfortunately, because of quarantine I'd been reluctant to break my hiking boots in at home, so I ended up with a decent sized blister on my left heel, which after 90 minutes stopped being a blister when it burst. We stopped and strapped it up, then continued on. I learnt two lessons during the first day of survival training.
1) How much I appreciate marked trails, and
2) If you have flu, going hiking in Antarctica is f*#king miserable
Brookes Hut faces out over Shirokaya Bay, which was frozen over. Inside there are 4 bunks and a kitchen, where we set up our shellite fueled rocket stoves and cooked our dinners by boiling water and adding them to our vacuum packed meals. After dinner and a few cups of tea, we were booted outside into the snow by the FTOs, where we crawled into our bivvies for the night. The bivvie was actually quite warm- the only surprise discomfort was that your breath condenses on the inside, which hangs centimetres above your head, and then freezes. This means that if a slight (or not so slight) breeze lifts the roof of the bivvy (which is really just a red body bag with a sleeping mat in it) thenyou get a shower of icicles in your face while you sleep... a multitude of times. The next morning the majority of our party got up, had breakfast, and started the hike back to station. I, on the other hand, stayed at Brookes with one of the FTOs and one of the Mawson boys, who also had trashed his feet. We cleaned up the hut and waited for a Squirrel to come pick us up and take us back to Davis, which arrived just after 11am. I didn't take any photos of or from the chopper, as I was too busy being embarassed and guilty that we even needed to be airlifted out. The hike that had taken around 6 hours the previous day was covered by the Squirrel in less than 5 minutes! Argh! By the end of the day, I'd decided that I wasn't hiking anywhere again, but would sweet talk the pilots into lifts around the place. After a couple more days of recovery, I've changed my mind again, with the next place to visit on my list being Platcha, which apparently has a wall of ice behind it with different shades and ripples of colour running through it.
