A breezey evening.

Well it is a little breezey tonight still.  Gusting 142km/hour and persisting around 130 km/hour ish for most of the afternoon and evening. Visibility...what visibility!

Anyway it's been a long day indoors for most, except the guys that have had to venture out to check the power house and tend to alarms. Travelling along the blizz lines in pairs and making radio contact  upon arrival and departure from every stop has been the order of the day.

Fingers crossed for no call outs for the guys tonight.

Anyway I guess it was excellent weather for poker night.

Casey weather board 8th April 2017. Photo: Jacque Comery

This one time on survival camp......

Morning aurora. Photo: Stu Shaw

In order to be able to travel around in the field in an Anatrctic winter, we all go through survival training. This would normally be completed as a part of a group, but with my last minute deployment I missed all of the training sessions that were undertaken in the summer.
Our Comms Tech Officer (CTO) Stu was appointed a delegated field traing officer position, and embarked upon the task of getting me field trained.
Aside from vehicle travel, navigation, snow and ice travel, gear familiarisation and other things, one of my tasks was to bivvy out overnight.
We chose a still night earlier this week, which coincidentally turned out to be stunningly clear, and hence cold!
We headed out to the camp site to the south of Station and went through setting up our different styles of tent, and I set up my bivvy site.
Everywhere we go here outside of the immediate Station area, we are required to carry a survival pack. It contains sufficient gear to enable us to go to ground should there be an incident or unexpected deterioration of weather. The objective of my sleep out was to spend the night in my survival bivvy, become familiar with this equipment should I ever need it, and well, basically survive.

The night unfolded a little like this....
1600hrs: Arrive at site. Erect the polar pyramid (our traverse camping tent), and a polar dome ( an impressively designed dome tent) - which Stu will sleep in.

Polar pyramid and the blue hagg. Photo: Jacque Comery

1700hrs: I started  to set up my bivvy site after choosing what i considered to be a sheltered place in the lee of a small rise and some rocks I dug myself a 'grave'. and used the blocks of snow to build a well engineered (of course) wall around the trench site for extra shelter.  The bivvy bag, or chip packet, as it is known, is a big non-breathable water proof bag, with a foam camping mat and a sleeping bag inside. It is wide enough to also hold a backpack and our boots.

Setting up my bivvy site in daylight . Photo: Jacque Comery

1800hrs: Collected snow to boil water. Demonstrated my stove lighting skills, waited for water to boil, and what seemed like 7 hours later made myself a delicious dinner of Katmandu lentil curry.  Temp around minus 10C. So far so good. I am already a little chilly out, so I stuck my packet of dinner down my jacket to 'cook'.

2000hrs: Skills and training talk completed, I tagged along with Stu as he took some photos of the rising moon.  But frankly I am getting cold, so I called it a night and am taking shelter in my bivvy bag.
I am wearing the following - thermal pants, fleece pants, two pairs of socks, thermal top, merino fleece top, synthetic down jacket, down jacets, wool gloves, mittes neck gaiter and a beanie, all packaged inside a down sleeping bag. I deceided to sleep on top of my Canada Goose jacket for extra insulation from the snow.

2030hrs: My body atop my Goose jacket is warm. My legs and feet are freezing.

2130hrs: Damnit! Can't fall asleep, shouldn't have had that Mars Bar for dessert. My feet are still cold. I think about putting my survival mittens on my feet, but can't be bothered digging them out of my pack. I just wiggle my feet instead.

0130hrs: Checked my watch as I thought I still hadn't fallen asleep.. but apparently I was asleep! Joy!  Hang on.. my watch is still set to Hobart time... 3 hours fast! Urghh! It is only 2230hrs.  Maybe I wasn't asleep afterall.

0000hrs: OK fixed my watch to avoid confusion. Not really sleeping. Kind of bored. Deceide to go for a pee for something to do. There are so many stars it is beautiful. I quickly got back into my bivvy again, and made the decision to sleep with my pee bottle on my feet as at least it was warm!

0200hrs: Warming up now. Pee bottle success. Deceide to kill time by taking selfies inside the bivvy! The flash is a bit bright. Watched old videos off my camera for the next half an hour for entertainment. Hoping Stu can't hear the elephant seal sounds through the still night air.

2am bivvy selfie. Photo: Jacque Comery

0230hrs: Snuggle back down and try and fall asleep thinking about special people whom I am missing, adventure ideas for November, and the sound of surf on rocks on Macquarie Island... my 'go to' relaxation sound. Temp now is minus 14C.

0430hrs: Hmm. Woke up again, but I am actually very cosy! Only a few hours to go. I think I am running out of fresh air.... I make a hole in my sleeping bag to breath out of but it is cold on my lips. My throat is sore from the dry air and I am so thirsty. I was sleeping with my drink bottle so that it didn't freeze. Successfuly, I did not confuse the drink bottle with the pee bottle. That there alone is a good enough reason to sleep with a head torch on my head. I also now have the giggles thinking about how hilarious this must all look.  Perhaps this isn't so bad afterall. At the very least my sense of humour will survive survial camp!

0600hrs: Stu wakes my up. "Jac wake up. Did you survive?". I flail around try to get my face out of my bivvy (My sleeping bag is my fully done up over my head, as is my bivvy bag, and i am still wearing mittens!), and when i do emerge, I see Stu looking down at my, but above him an aurora stretching right across the sky.  "Stu! Look up!! " I squealed.

Stu spent the next half an hour taking photo and I laid snuggled up in my finally warm downy grave hole, watching the ribbons of colour dance and pulse overhead.
The easterly horizon started to glow, so we packed up our camp, and headed back to Station for breakky and a coffee.

Aurora over the polar pyramid. Photo: Stu Shaw

The lowest temp of the night was minus 15.8C.  Fun experience. I did indeed survive. The take home message - good planning and safe travel is key. Spending a night in one of these things  in an incident situation would not be the highlight of my season. Mittens do fit on yor feet, and the orange jar is the pee bottle.
A big thanks to Stu for camping out  with me, and taking some great photos!
If you made it to the end of this story....thanks for sharing survival camp with me!!!!

Sunsets, sea ice, and sastrugi - a trip to Browning Peninsula Part 2

At 0730hrs, SCTO Clint was already on the job, offering us coffee in our bunks and reheating pies that we brought along from Station for breakfast. By 0800hrs we completed our radio sked back to Station, packed up the hut, (put on our frozen boots - well that was just me!) and set out to climb the hill to the repeater.

Piling back in the yellow hagg, we set off after giving it a good warm up. I was back in the drivers seat, having clearly not sufficiently terrified everyone the day before.

We parked up at the base of the hill, and then scrambled up the rocky, snowy slopes to where the repeater was installed. A small space case and two solar panels comprising our radio link back to Station.

The view from the top whilst only 112 m above sea level was dramatic. We could see all the way out across Penney Bay to the Williams Nunatak.

Browning Hut. Photo: Jacque Comery

Yellow Hagg all parked up on the ice at the hut. Photo: Jacque Comery

View from the repeater. Photo: Jacque Comery

The view over the Windmill Islands. Photo: Jacque Comery

The Hagg parked at the base of the hill. Photo: Jacque Coemry

Ready to roll. Photo: Simon Jodrell 

After scrambling back down we then drove down to the frozen sea ice edge at GPS point B-11, and donned our packs to hike to the north -east side of the peninsula in search of an elephant seal wallow.  Clint had never seen an elephant seal, and the group that came out last week failed to find any, so we were full of anticipation.

We took the long way around sticking to the shore line, as the sea ice is still only just forming. Large tide cracks were evident, and the ice crackled and popped as we walked along the shore line in the still air.  This was the first time that I had ever heard the sea ice crack. Intriguing and disconcerting all at once! Hoping to see one or two seals we were treated to at least thirty sub-adult males in various stages of moulting on the shore. The familiar elephant seal smell had me missing Macquarie Island.

Hiking along the frozen shoreline beside the tide cracks. Photo: Mark Graine

Checking out the elephant seals midway on our hike. Photo: Mark Grainger.

After a few hours of hiking we returned to the Hagg and set out retracing our track for the 3 hour drive to Station.

The things that stay with me from this trip: Antarctica is most definately as dramatic and striking as you could imagine; skiiing across Antarctica over frozen sastrugi would be the worst! (big kudos to anyone who's done it!!); it sucks when your water bottle freezes; and finally, this continent should not be white on the map. It should be blue. The exposed ice that we passed over for most of the journey was a smooth polished ice of a most beautiful pale aquamarine blue, and not the endless white snow covered ground i was expecting.

Every part of this experience is amazing, and all I can do is just soak it up.

The Brownings Repeater trip crew. Clint, Simo, Mark and Jac. Photo: Mark Grainger

Sunsets, sea ice, and sastrugi - a trip to Browning Peninsula Part 1

Last Thursday afternoon I had the pleasure of being invited along by a few of the guys to visit the Browning Peninsulat the south of Casey. Our SCTO (Comms officer) had to make a pre-winter inspection of the Channel 21 VHF radio repeater on top of the highest point on the Peninsula itself, and was heading out with our Instrument Technican and our Bureau of Meteorology Technical Officer (BoM Met Tech)
Naturally, with my freshly issued Hagglunds licence in hand, I jumped at the opportunity to go and explore the local area.
A windy foggy morning cleared to a spectacular bluebird day, and we set out at about 1400hrs in the afternoon. It didn't take long for the antics to begin, as we set upon taking all photos of the trip, of each of us taking photos of each other, on the trip. Confused yet?

Snapping a quick pic on the A-line. Photo: Mark Grainger

 The bright but low afternoon sun displayed a spectacular halo through the cirrostratus clouds. The sunlight dancing off the snow twinkled like diamonds as we forged along in our Yellow Hagg, with me at the wheel. (Such trusting fellow expeditioners I have!). We all wear headsets in the Hagg so that we can talk to and hear each other, but we can also play music through them as well to liven up the trip. Yes, I am considerate enough to turn my mic on mute before I sing along, and the Hagg is so noisy that no one else can hear you sing anyway!
We move around the Station operating area on set routes, and we navigate the Haggs along these routes by GPS and Radar. There is a high dgree of certainty that  there are no crevasses along out GPS routes, and we stay within 15 metres of this GPS line at all times, lest we wander off into a 'slot'.
The A-line which connects Casey to the Wilkins Aerodrome is a well forged path, and is so well packed that it is our Station equivalent of a super highway. Before long we turned off onto the B-line headed for Brownings. We bounced our way along the frozen sastrugi, and our speed reduced accordingly.

Halos and high cloud. Photo: Jacque Comery

Yellow Hagg. Photo: Jacque COmery

We approached the Browning Hut after a three hours drive not long before sunset, and after parking the Hagg into the wind for the night, we dumped our packs in the hut, and scampered off over a few local hills to watch the sunset upon the ice cliffs of the Vanderford Glacier. It was a chilly minus 13C, and colder with a significant wind chill.
The views were breathtaking, and the golden light of the late afternoon played upon the wind blown snow in the most specatcular way. A few photos and many memories captured we headed back to the hut.

Mark and I checking out the Vanderford. Photo: Simon Jodrell

Me and the Vanderford Glacier. Photo: Simon Jodrell

Sastrugi in the setting sunlight. Photo: Jacque Comery

Sunset on the Browning. Photo: Jacque Comery

Vanderford Glacier. Photo: Jacque Comery

Last light. Photo: Jacque Comery

After dinner, some games and a few beers, we all crawled into our bunks and slept soundly!
We awoke the next day to an outside temperature of minus 18C, and minus 13C inside the cold porch of the hut. I was smart enough to sleep with my drink bottle and batteries in my sleeping bag, but left my boots in the cold porch to freeze. Rookie error.

The life sized snow globe.

This weekend saw the first decent snow fall blanket the Station, since I arrived here.
Over Friday evening snow started to fall and by Saturday morning  there was a lovely white cloak over everything perhaps 20 cm deep. The sight of such dry fluffy snow inspired those of us at breakfast to dream of skiing, snowboarding, getting stuck in tree wells, powder runs, and kicked off lengthy discussions of our favourite ski hills...
Meanwhile outside the flakes got bigger, and in the still air they just piled on up, deeper and deeper. By smoko we figured we had about 40cm snow depth, and by the evening it was getting close to a metre deep in places.
Then today, as quickly as it all accumulated, it disappeared. Winds from the east over 45 kts and gusting up to 60 kts blew up in the afternoon today on account of a nearby weather system, trapping us in a giant life sized snowdome! Station travel conditions moved to 'Yellow' for caution on account of the wind and no visability.  By the evening though, the winds died out as quickly as they had appeared, once again exposing the ice and rock around station. Our roads are once again clear, and in just a few hours all of the snow has been blown away.
A lovely reminder of how dynamic the weather and environment is down here, and I think, just a taste of what is in store for us this winter.

Entrance to the Red Shed. Photo: Jacque Comery

Site services slowly getting buried. Photo: Jacque Comery

The Haggs all plugged in on the "Go Line". Photo: Jacque Comery

Creative driving. Photo: Jacque Comery

Snow settling on the new sea ice. Photo: Jacque Comery

Blue Hagg floats over the snow, returning with the crew from Wilkins Aerodrome. Photo: Jacque Comery

Snow. Photo: Jacque Comery