Friday 22nd March 2013

Usual routine, breakfast, walk down to the operations building, sort out all the new emails then off to do the APANSA filter change. I did one job I have been putting of all week, a long walk up the slippery ice to the receivers hut to re program the two HF radios there and then walk all the way to the opposite end of the station to the transmitter building to re program the other two HF radios there. On the way back to the operations building I came across Luc, one of the two BOM MET observers just about to let off the first of the two weather balloons they release each day. On a clear still day not long ago, Luc took a photo of the balloon at 30,000 feet, the height of Mt Everest, but usually they go about fifty kilometres inland before exploding. In a blizzard, at about one thousand feet there is virtually no wind. What does this all mean?? DON’T get your foot caught in the sonde string J  

That's Luc lauching the weather baloon with a nice shot of the shit farm in the back ground

Back in the workshop I made up a new wiring loom for the Mt Henderson hut. This, along with a large battery will connect to the existing solar panel and regulator to hopefully provide DC power for lighting and the radio instead of burning candles. It’s hard to believe that in this day and age of don’t move in case someone gets hurt they allow candles to be used in all the field huts, but only because we have to. I think if certain people had their way all the huts would be taken away and disposed of. While here I will try and modernise each hut, materials permitting. Next nice day Keldyn and I will make a trip out to Mt Henderson hut to upgrade the power while Keldyn installs a range hood and hopefully installs a new heater or fixes the one there.

After lunch we had a fire fighting exercise where we all got to dress up, drive the fire Häg around and blast the shit out of everything with the fire hoses. Well it was good fun at the time, but now we have a lot more ice around to contend with. The whole exercise was to get used to the equipment, fire hydrants and to feel how cold it is dressed in fire fighting turnout gear. By now it was getting late in the day and I went over to work on the orange Häg. The mongrels who took the gear out of the previous Häg just cut all the wires off leaving me to have to make whole new looms and the trouble is there is no documentation for this equipment and the manufacture has been taken over so there is no information available on the Internet, so I have to trace it out on my own. Well, out of time now so it’s going to have to be a Monday job.  



Tonight we had a pizza and cocktails night which was good fun. We all brought down some grog just for these occasions and I would like to point out that out of about twenty different cocktails (some of them were horrible and would kill a thirsty camel instantly) my one, an Illusion was voted best. Look it up and get one into ya. What can I say, I slept pretty well Friday night J

Wednesday 20th March 2013

Once again I mostly worked on the orange Hag as well as going out to east arm to take photos of the damaged antenna. Don’t you just hate it when head office says OK yes, so the antenna is damaged, can you please send us some photos any way, like they don’t believe you?

 

Hmmmm..........sure looks buggered to me ??

 

If you leave any timber outside here it gets sand blasted by the snow in blizzards and after a while it really brings the grain out and it looks fantastic. Every time I walk past this piece I cant help but stop by and touch it and take a photo of it if I have my camera on me.

 

 

It was bitterly cold today and the harbour is now about eighty percent frozen over now.

 Pancake ice

 

 

On a happy note, I managed to repair my alarm clock today that has been playing up since I got here. The bloody clock kept resetting and going off at random. It turned out to be an intermittent fault in the power supply. I just have to fix my hands now, all the joints in my fingers are cracking and it’s very painful. I tell you, everything buggers up down here.

Oh, and it was Chris’s birthday today and Justin made another one of his creations for the occasion.

 

My mission for tomorrow is to finish that bloody orange Hag so I can roll it off the production line and then start on the blue Hag……..Ugh !! 

My friend George who wintered with Bill, my step father at Mawson in 1960 sent me this extract from his diary and I thought it was brilliant. (I hope you don’t mind sharing it with the World George?) George and Bill brought the first motor bike down to Antarctica and it’s interesting to compare their recreational pursuits to ours of today.

 

Sun 16 May [1960]

12.15 Am writing this up at the table (under the bed) which is probably the first time ever. I've got on the lager-cock lamb’s wool inners. Checked the all sky camera before coming here and the bloody thing had jammed last night -- eff! It had been cloudy tonight (before pictures) but is clear now so I set the camera going. I was slushy today and it was quite ok. Kev woke me at 9.30 and I went into the kitchen, had breakfast and did the washing up. Worked like a slave after lunch as Ralph (bless him) said I could piss off for the afternoon and he would look after afternoon tea. I finished the dinner dishes at 1.30 and got dolled up ready for a ski drag behind the motorbike -- leather pants, etc. Felt as hot as hell as I was getting dressed. Went down to the sea ice to meet Bill on the bike but he'd pissed off to Castle Berg. Geoff and Nev were fixing the jeep. I had a couple of runs on the dog lines slope with skis (no stocks). Bill turned up and we set off for Castle Berg in whiteout conditions. There was no wind to speak of. Just outside the harbour we ran into some deep drift and I jumped onto the back of the bike and we dragged the skis behind.

 



We hammered out past Flatoye (to the left) and then onto the long stretch to Castle Berg. The surface conditions were bloody good in some places and bloody bad in others. I donned the skis and for a while found this slippery ice a little hard to savvy. After a while I found that the best way to traverse rafted blue ice was to have the skis about 18” apart and to run on the inside steel runners.We went along very well. Once I had to let go of the rope to avert a collision with some icy outcrops.

We reached Castle Berg where we met Harry, Terry, Graeme. They, with Viv, Doug, and Rob had come out on the Fergy. Bill and I circled the berg. The ice was really smooth and as slippery as hell. I was able to pass Bill on occasions when we swerved.We met the Fergy. Rob took over riding the bike.

He took off – but didn’t know that I was hanging on. After a while he woke up and then I started swerving.Unfortunately I overdid it at one stage and pulled the back wheel from under him. He fell spectacularly. I was ok except for the tangential speed that I’d acquired.After this Terry joined his rope to the bike and we both skied behind, first with Rob and later with Bill.Hell! We went well. Terry would lift his rope and I’d dart under to the other side.(Terry had come out on skis behind the Fergy and Rob had come out on an Auster ski).

We had great fun and eventually headed towards home at about 3.30.The tractor was well ahead and Bill was hammering to catch up to it. We clattered over rafted ice and the skis broke off the overhanging bits. Once the ice didn’t break and I came to (minor) grief. Bill came to what appeared to be an open patch and wrapped on the speed. We slivered over it in 3rd gear at 30 mph. Terry and I were finding that the concentration was beginning to tell. I had to let go at one stage when I got out of control. Once free I picked up stability again.

Once again we raced off. Reaching our fastest speed for the day things were getting a bit blurred. Terry and I both had some near-misses: skis crossed, diverging or off the ice, when CRASH!! Terry came a horrible cropper. He was really hurt. Bill and I went on another 100 yards or so. I thought Terry was ok, as he usually was, but Bill gave me a frantic wave. Poor Terry was in pain. His right thigh was hellish, he said.

Bill raced off and got the tractor. I gave Terry my leather pants and windproof to keep him warm.

 



We bundled him onto the sled behind the tractor. Bill and I went back via the motorbike, me on skis. We had to give up on the skis on the stretch before Mawson and give them to the tractor to take back. We raced off with me at the helm. Whiteout conditions made things hard. Inside the harbour we came across Geoff (doctor) and Nev testing the jeep. We gave chase but the bastards thought that we were fooling.

Bill and I hit a hell of a bump in the whiteout. The bike lifted like a great bird and Bill got spring-boarded up to my shoulders – I could feel him groping to pull himself down. We came down true and straight and continued on – surprised. Well, after that I was slushy. Terry’s leg was ok. And we had a forum after tea including the topics:

Is the newspaper too pornographic? What about a fire alarm?
 

Later we had “The green years” and then I went up to the all sky camera hut. My desert boots got wet from snow melt inside there and when I jumped outside onto the rock they stuck to it.

It’s now 1250.

Tuesday 19th March 2013

Yep, was VERY tired when I woke up. Once again I mostly worked on the orange Hag getting all the mechanical hardware completed. Keldyn dropped by to give me some moral support and I enjoyed the company. Let’s hope he doesn’t want some moral support when he’s fixing the frozen shit pipe !!

It was Jeremy’s birthday today and at dinner, Justin brought in a cake he made for him and we all sang happy birthday to him; Jeremy, not Justin. Latter I spent a couple of hours updating my Blog and then wandered up to bar catabatic to wish Jeremy the best for his birthday. Jeremy decided to go to bed early, but we decided to celebrate his birthday anyway. I brought out some cool music videos and Keldyn, Darron, Chris and I partied on. Allegedly at some point I woke up half the camp playing the drums and did pretty well playing darts with a bow and arrow.

 

 

 

 

Monday 18th March 2013

As expected I was very tired when I woke. The good weather continues although it is getting colder every day and we are losing ten minutes of sun light every day. I spent most of the day working on the orange Hag and after work I took my camera out and experimented with manual focus and getting my camera settings right for aurora photography.

Once again I awoke at three o’clock and there were streaks of aurora running across the sky so I reluctantly made the decision to go out again. This time I took my time and put on lots of layers so I wouldn’t be cold and by the time I finally got outside the bloody aurora had mostly disappeared. I set up anyway as they come and go pretty quickly, this time setting up in front of the ANARESAT ray dome as the streaks were running behind the dome when I first came out. I waited and waited but it wouldn’t come back, so I took the opportunity to take many shots anyway to test various camera settings to see what works best. While waiting I was lying on my back on the snow drift looking at satellites crossing over head.

I was enjoying myself (and this time I was quite warm) even though I was disappointed the aurora disappeared, but I realized I would be very tired in the morning so I packed up and went back to bed. In the morning I examined the shots I took and right away I could see what settings worked best and I was quite impressed with the shots I took.

Sunday 17th March 2013

I slept in late, did my washing and then wandered down to the green store for a spa to sooth my aching knees. It was fantastic; I relaxed reading my Cruising Helmsman magazine then wandered back to the red shed for some brunch. It was such a glorious day, blue sky and no wind. I was surprised to see half the harbour had frozen over. It wont be long till we are riding quad bikes over it.

After brunch, I took advantage of the good weather to finish off the six meter antenna and cables. I have put a pulley on top of the six meter mast so I can hoist up the antenna in good weather and lower it when it is windy. The system works well and hopefully it will last the year through all the blizzards and cold. By the time I had this finished I wandered inside the shack and made a few contacts and by then it was dinner time.

I woke about three o’clock and looked out the window and there was an Aurora taking place so I got up and went outside to have my fist attempt of photographing one. It was bloody freezing and I wasn’t exactly prepared and suffered the consequences. The photos looked good on the view finder, but I was disappointed when I got back inside and viewed them on the large screen. My focus was all wrong and I need to do a bit more home work, but I did manage to get a couple of reasonable shots for my first attempt. As far as Auroras go, this was a pretty piss weak one, but I want to hone my skills for when the really good ones light up the sky.

Horseshoe harbour freezing over

Sir Douglas Mawson and my first attempt of photographing an aurora

Friday 15th to Saturday 16th March 2013

I woke up this morning to one of Mawson’s glorious days, no wind and minus six. The ocean is starting to freeze over with lots of grease ice and pan cakes everywhere. I spent the morning working on the orange Hag once again when Cookie asked me if I’d like to go to Mt Henderson to do a recce on the Eastern side. Well, is the pope catholic? Once again I was packed and sitting in the front seat of the green Hag before the dust had settled.

If we can confirm a safe route around the Eastern side we will mark waypoints and create a safe route and then I will program all the GPS’s so all expeditioners can venture around that side if they want to. The Hag’s are slow and quite noisy, but they are also warm, have plenty of room to chuck all your gear in and are much safer than a quad if you fall into a slot or crevasse.

I packed some vacuum packed pastor for dinner and a nice bottle of wine for a sundowner on the balcony of Hendo shack and tomorrow Darron and I hope to climb My Henderson peak.

We didn’t get to leave station till about two o’clock but it was blue sky and zero wind, just perfect conditions. We headed straight up the plateau to waypoint H6 (Craig at the wheel) and then turned East into no man’s land. We avoided a huge ice wave at the North West corner of the Henderson Massif stopping for a photo, and then turned towards Lake Henderson. It was quite steep on the way down and every now and then we turned back to make sure we were able to climb our way out without slipping. All seemed good so we committed ourselves and headed in. I was just letting the Hag drive its self without any power when at the last twenty meters it got steeper and the engine ran away and we lost traction and skidded the last twenty meters down to the lake. I thought it was great fun but Cookie had that worried look as if we wouldn’t be able to get back out, but I was more confident.

We cruised around the lake and got out and walked over to another smaller lake taking photos as we went. As the sun was getting lower, we didn’t want to waste too much time as we still had the East side to explore. We assessed the slope we came down and found what looked a better place to exit and up we headed all the way to the top without slipping at all.

From there we headed wide around the end of a huge bliz trail till it was low enough to cross and then headed south and in no time we found ourselves in a heavily crevassed area. I had a few beads of sweat on my forehead as I tried to drive around and negotiate the large two meter wide crevasses that I could see and hope there were none hidden under the snow. We pulled up at one large crevasse and I broke the thin snow covering and it all fell into a bottomless void possibly hundreds of meters deep. Then Cookie said c’mon lets go, “go where”, keep going straight ahead, I held my breath as I drove across the wide crevasse and we hardly left a track on the thin snow. Phew !!

The Hag’s a quite safe to travel in as they can cope with about 1.5 – 2m wide crevasses but you don’t want to be on a quad. A woman took a short cut here several years ago and ended up twenty meters down a crevasse with a 600kg quad bike on top of her and with multiple injuries.

Once out of the crevasse country we headed over to a huge ice scour and pulled up and went down for a walk. It was amazing with frozen lakes all around the base of the mountain range. You could see deep down into the frozen lake and could see frozen bubbles, cracks and rocks deep below in the crystal clear ice. We walked for several kilometres exploring and taking photos till we reached the end. There were many huge glacial rocks along the way and the walk was quite spectacular.

Once back at the Hag we headed for Henderson hut getting there just before sunset. We had to jimmy the door as it was frozen over covered in ice. This is the oldest hut at Mawson and dates back to the 60’s I think. Inside it was like a deep freezer. I started the heater and boiled some ice while we sat out on the balcony and watched the sun go down with one of the most spectacular views of the whole district. The beer was freezing in the neck of the bottle and it was a struggle to drink it before it was rock solid.

After a couple of beers we retired into the hut as it was bloody freezing outside. In the hut was colder and even after about four hours with the heater burning the ice all over the floor was still frozen. Even my pillow was frozen to the bed. After dinner and a few bottles of wine we went to bed. I wore all my cloths including my rabbit hat and gloves and it was still cold.

I had a pretty good sleep despite the cold and the claustrophobia of a mummy sleeping bag. After breakfast we waited till the wind dropped off around ten o’clock, then Darron and I attempted to climb to the summit of Mt Henderson. It was hard going up a very steep screed slope till we reached solid rock and pushed high for the summit. We rested in a saddle below the summit and dropped our survival packs. I took my gloves off for about sixty seconds to take some photos and without warning my hands went off. The pain was excruciating and no matter what I did I couldn’t stop the pain and warm them up. I should have known better. After a while they started to get better but still very painful and we started our assent to the summit. We pushed on up a very steep section and I rested on a ledge to assess the situation. Mt fingers were still very painful and our Antarctic boots are very awkward and clumsy so I made the decision not to push on any further without ropes as it was not worth the risk. Darron had a spare pare of woollen inner gloves and I put them on and after a while my hands came good. We took many photos from the ledge just five meters or so from the summit and had a rest taking in the breath taking panorama.

Eventually it was time to come back down and we started our decent picking up our packs at the saddle and picking our way through the dangerous screed slope. It seemed to take forever and by the time I got down I was exhausted and when I took my hat off I had ice dreadlocks and ice all over my beard. It was a great climb and we had some lunch and a hot drink before departing the hut.

From Henderson hut we headed for Fischer Nunatak taking in a massive ice scour along the way. We stopped high near a ridge and went for a walk along the spur line climbing both peaks of Fischer Nunatak and finding an abandoned weather station high up on a wind blasted ridge. After our walk we headed off past the ski slopes on the western side of Fischer Nunatak and headed back towards the Henderson track line where we proceeded back down the plateau to the station.

We got home about seven o’clock just in time for dinner and after dinner I was so exhausted and my knees were sore, I went straight to bed and slept like a baby.



Mt Henderson, the perfect peak



This is a good example how bright the glare is up on the plateau. You actually have to trick the camera to take a good photo.

 

The steep decent down to lake Henderson



Henderson hut is right in the centre ridge. Lake Henderson below

 

Crevasse country

Hendo hut

The view from Hendo hut

The view from Hendo hut zoomed in. Kellas Islands in front of the large berg  

Hendo summit via the steep screed slope 

Darron at the saddle 

On top of Mt Henderson 951m

Thanks for the hat Sarah & Jackson :)

Darron on top of Mt Henderson

The view from the summit. The two wind generators at Mawson visible 19km away at the bottom 

The magnificent view of the Framnes Mountains from the summit of Mt Henderson

Wednesday 13th to Thursday 14th March 2013

I spent a lot of time on Tuesday trying to get OziExplorer onto my PC and working. This application is used to program all our GPS’s with all the “safe” waypoints and routes up on the plateau and in winter, out on the sea ice. It was the usual story with computers, three hours to find the software, three hours to find the license key, three hours to figure out how to work the bloody thing and to get it to talk to the GPS and then fifteen seconds to program each GPS.

As expeditioners advance their skills in the field and as new areas are opened up and declared safe to travel, I will progressively add more routes to the GPS’s so expeditioners can venture out further afield. Later I also programmed up a new iP phone for the doctor and helped him out trying to get his X-ray machine and heart rate monitor on line.

I also started work fitting out all the electronics on the new orange Hag. First job was to turn the radar around ninety degrees. (What were you thinking Chris?) It would have been a pain in the arse driving back from Rumdoodle in reverse during a blizzard. This equipment, radar, multi function display, GPS, flux gate compass, VHF radio and HF radio are all different brands and they all have to talk to each other, (What were you thinking Kingston?) so I have to interface a bowl of spaghetti of assorted cables, adaptors and converters, what I call Micro Sucks plug and pray. As long as the smoke stays where it should be all will be fine.

I also installed a six meter mast for the six meter antenna in a forty four gallon drum full of rocks(Antarctic style) and pulled three cables into the transmitter building. At first it was a bit wobbly, but after throwing in some smaller rocks and then some gravel and shook it around a bit it became quite stable. Understandably my back was not happy that night and the next day. Wednesday night a few of us pitched in and cleaned out the gym and the spa/sauna areas. If you want some old smelly gym shoes, sweat towels and bathers let me know as there was about eight years worth just left lying about. I can now say I have been to the gym :)