Wednesday 6th February 2013

Today we hooked up with the two guys’ we are replacing and they took us over to the operations building where my office is, and we started to go through our handover. We also went to the field store and got a back pack each filled with safety gear and overnight bedding kit as if the wind dropped enough we were going to fly out to Mt Parsons to do a battery change on the radio repeater there. We were in luck and after lunch the four of us took off in two choppers and headed out to Mt Parsons about 25kms away. The scenery was breath taking as we rose up over the ice plateau heading towards the distant Frames mountains. All perspective of size and distance was lost as we could see hundreds of kilometers in all directions. 

My chopper circled for a while as we watched the first chopper land and unload all the gear, it took off and circled as we landed on top of the ridge. It was a pretty rough landing due to the up draft but as they say any landing you walk away from is a good one. It was bitterly cold up there and as I filmed the chopper preparing to depart, I had so much steam coming out of my nose and mouth I was wondering if the camera could see anything but as soon as the chopper lifted and flew away all the steam stopped, this is because the ice crystals need a dust particle as a nucleus to cling too and as the air is so clean in Antarctica there is nothing to form a nucleus and therefore no steam.

Trip out to Mt Colbeck repeater for battery change