Let's do the Time Warp - Field Training Take 2 (Part 1)

Three years ago I was sitting down to my laptop to write blog posts to discuss my first experiences on the Antarctic plateau and the pleasures of sleeping in a Bivvy bag. 

Some things change in life, for example: I'm using a Mac now, I'm in a much warmer place, and I'm a kilogram or two more "prosperous" than I was back then.

And some things are destined to repeat themselves: generations blaming their problems on those who came before or who will come after, the great romances and tragedies that are told in tales, reruns of Friends. And I go on field training. 

Early in my time at Mawson I spent three days in the field in Antarctica ticking boxes for the AAD and learning how to not die in the ridiculous place they had left me in. And very recently I spent three days in the field on Macquarie Island.... you guessed it, learning how to not die.

On a lovely Macca Thursday I met up with another group of three field training hopefuls and our instructor, we kitted up, discussed our plans, turned our tags and wandered out of station. 

And then rather rapidly and rudely we ran into one of the glaring differences between field travel on the continent and field travel on Macquarie Island. It's called Doctor's Track, and it's a bastard.

That's home way over in the distance.

You see, in Antartica you get cruise around in the comfort of a Hägglund or astride a quad bike like some kind of petrol powered super hero. It's the high life for sure. On Macca you get to cruise around on your own two feeties, dragging all your crap essential survival equipment with you along the way. And if you can't be arsed trudging up 400ft of mud and grass in the cold, wet, and rain, then mate, you're staying at home.

Doctor's Track is so named because after using it you're going to need one... and it's the main highway off station.

Still gaining elevation...

Like the wolf of Three Little Pigs fame we huffed and puffed and blew our knees out, but we did eventually make it to the top of the rise and were rewarded with level track for our efforts. We slogged along in majestic sub-antarctic wilderness for the rest of the day, making it to our nights accommodation around four in the afternoon (sunset!). Bauer Bay Hut is located 1/4 of the way down the west coast of the island, is built in what I would call traditional remote hut style, and features an external "Shangrila" that ideally is stuffed full of field food.

On the north end of the island plateau the tracks are remarkably well maintained.

Gorgeous sunset colours lighting our decent to Bauer Bay.

This is another difference between continental field huts and Macquarie Island field huts: Antarctic huts have a stash of absolute basic provisions that don't mind fluctuating temperatures from -40°C to 15°C (eg. milk powder, instant coffee, sugar, tea, potato powder) and expeditioners are expected to bring all their meals with them. On Macca we have stashes of most of everything in Shangrila at each hut, and carry treats with us on our backs.

At Bauer we baked bread, cooked dinner, dried our gear, reviewed good radio communications practices, discussed our plans for the following day and settled in for an early evening to recover from our first day of walking Macquarie Island!

Day 2 dawned with uncharacteristically civil weather, and saw us clear of the hut by 0900. Our intentions for the day were to make our way south along the Aurora Cave Track, experience some featherbed, and break east off track up Flat Creek to practice navigation. Eventually we would end up back on the east coast of the island, overnighting at Brother's Point Hut.

Featherbed is an interesting phenomena of short grasses and herbs growing thickly over a layer of water, and feels remarkably similar to hiking over a waterbed. It is an incredibly inefficient medium for walking on, and worthy of it's own blog post some day.

Deposited out of The Labyrinth...

onto the featherbed.

Working hard by this point.

<Insert two week writing break here. Wow, I've been busy!>

I'll have to bid you adieu here, I've written more than I should have about the trip and I've been busier than I should have been. I'm going for another walk over the weekend so we'll continue when I get back on station next week.

Wish me luck!

The Revival

Friends! Readers!

Hi!

It's been a while.

Here's some of what's happened since we last spoke:
I was in Antarctica.
I got on a ship to leave Antarctica.
We crashed the ship...

Oops

... I was back in Antarctica.
Party on station and show off to new friends for a week.

Crowded now

Helicopter ride out to a Japanese ice-breaker.
Party on ice-breaker for a week.

Hackey sack = party

Helicopter ride to Casey station.
Party on Casey station for a night.

See? Hackey sack = party!

Then ride in RAAF cargo jet (C-17) with three helicopters sharing my space back to Hobart.

Too awesome to caption.

Yep, that was a full-on time. If you're very lucky I might one day do a full write up.

So so so! There's a whole lot of intervening adventures between then and now for sure. Hurt myself in North America, Europe, and Australia. Camped, couch surfed, live in hotels, made all sorts of amazing friends (you know who you are). And through it all, you know what I missed?

Being bastard cold and miserably wet. 

Well... not really. But I did miss the adventure that working for the Australian Antarctic Division facilitates.  

Solution? Apply for a job in January 2017, sign a contract on 31 July 2017, board a ship on 9th March 2018, hello new home on the 12th!

And what a home it is.

Sure, she's cold (normally 0-8°C) and damp (some form of precipitation every day!).
Sure, the accommodation is riddled with asbestos.

Sure, it's a tiny speck in the middle of the Southern Ocean, prone to inundation and earthquakes, four days sail from the nearest help, with a tenuous internet connection and 13 other social misfits sharing my space for the next 12 months.

But it's beautiful. And it's wild. And for the next year.... it's mine. 

Here's a taste of what's to come.

LARCs loaded on the Aurora Australis for a amphibious resupply.

First sighting of my new home!

My view to see the ship off home.

And some of the locals who've visited me.

Some of them sleep a lot.

Others like to parade.

And pose.

The local big boys are surprisingly stealthy. 

Fur seals are a bit more active, local dogs. 

And this is home!

And station from the other direction. 

The Ledingham's Experience - Day 2 to the Stillwell Hills

I don't have a map for you this time, sorry. I'll try and wrangle one for you with Day 3.

Day 2 began with coffee and fruit-toast. People adapt amazingly quickly to new levels of "normal", and down here, in the field, a slab of buttery fruit-toast is the absolute pinnacle, complete perfection. There is nothing better. We couldn't bask in luxury for long though, there was more progress to be made, so after breakfast we broke camp and took off quick-smart.

Prior to this expedition my record for furthest traveled west (in the South...) was Proclamation Point (more on Proc Point in Day 4), on the west side of the Taylor Glacier. In fact, none of we six expo's had ever been past that point before, so we were heading into truly unknown territory today.  

Which turned out to be hours of soul-destroying, back-breaking, 8km/hr sastrugi. Hurrah.

Evidently the sea ice is normally smoothest closest to the plateau edge. Unfortunately, navigating around protruding glaciers means heading waaaaaay out towards the sea edge, and the provided GPS travel routes are placed a bit off shore to protect us from the risk of calving ice. So: sastrugi. 

This time round our patience lasted two, maybe two and a half hours... after which we kicked it straight back inland and found the sweet sweeeeeet smooth ice to bring our average speed back up to 30km/hr. Sastrugi really is genuinely unbearable in a Hagglund.

In hour four of the drive we made a short stop at Tilley Nunatak (another helo fuel depot - apparently they're everywhere) to check on the drums (yep, still there) and enjoy the wind.

Auto-focus on blowing snow.

As uncomfortable as they are on the rough stuff, I love the unstoppable little nuggets.

Cinema.

From Tilley it was a steady trip along the coast into the Stillwell Hills and past the Dovers Glacier. This is where things got really interesting for me; the geography out there is completely different from the Antarctica that I'm used to. Around Mawson the Antarctic plateau dominates, there are distant mountain ranges, and a few small islands. In comparison the Stillwell Hills are a large group of taller hills right on the plateau coast, with islands of a similar size all around. 

The landscape blew my mind.

But there was still a ways to go before we could settle down. We paused at one point to try out the Hagglunds HF transmitters, were met with abject failure, and retreated to good ol' sat phones. ANARE expeditions are a precision machine.

After the whole HF fiasco was thrown in the "too hard" basket we finished the last six kilometers to the Ledingham's Depot site, and were rewarded with the most spacious field accommodation any of us have ever been too. Good god was it comfortable.

Of course, we were here to get work done! So work we did. There was some very minor maintenance to be done by electrician, although things were generally in good working order. The plumber set about replacing and pressure testing gas regulators, and the chippy started stripping and resealing the joins in the fiberglass structure. His was the biggest job of the trip so everyone not too attached jumped in to assist... I spent a lot of time scraping silicone on this trip.

We also spent some time pitching a polar pyramid. I hate the polar pyramid (although I've never had to use one in anger). Pyramid shaped tent, very sturdy, reasonably warm. Getting in and out of it is like being born. We brought two of them with us in case we needed extra sleeping space on the trip, but there was also a pyramid left at Ledingham's that was the designated "toilet tent". Doing your business in Antarctica can be an inglorious business, but on a five day trip it is a bit of a necessity. Yes, it gets cold.

Polar pyramid right of screen.

As evening set in I took off by myself for a walk to enjoy the surrounds. We had noticed a huge-huge-huge bizarre snow wall nearby that I was keen to check out. I spent a bit of time at the edge of the wall enjoying the spectacle, and eventually JB came out to join me. We took some spectacular shots that night.

We finished the day off with another gourmet (frozen) meal sent by Kim and the nightly sched, after which I set about building a nest. The hut may have only had three beds but it also had plenty of space, and there was a camp bed available so I stashed it under a trestle table and built it up with bear rugs and sleeping bags.

I slept wonderfully.

Accommodation at Ledingham's Depot: melon has three beds and two on the floor, JB sleeps outside. 

Misc photos: