Hey Hey!
Weekend before last I finally got out for my first Jolley. Brilly, Aaron, Hamish and myself headed out to Rumdoodle Hut for the Saturday night. We didn’t really get up to much but seeing as the last time I was at Rum we were sleeping out in our bivvie bags it was nice to revisit and actually stay inside the hut. We left Mawson after lunch and it took just under a hour and a half to get out to the hut. The views of the Hendo and Fang mountain ranges on the way were fantastic but slightly lost their grandeur as the windows in the hagg frost over and you have to scrape them clear every five minutes. Luckily the front windscreen is heated so at least the driver can see where we’re going. Once at the hut and everything was all set up Hamish and I went for a small walk over to a massive blizz tail coming off the mountain range behind the hut and took in the amazing views. Since the sun went down at about 3.30 we were soon back in the hut and we broke out the cheese platers and beers obviously reliving the same resilience and endurance displayed by expeditions since Shackleton. For those worrying about me: no need as I am surviving the elements ok thus far. Originally our plan for the next day was to take our time in the morning waiting for the sun to rise then make our way over to the Hendo range and Brilly knew of a great place to go for a hike called ‘End Wave’ – a spot where two glaciers meet and have pushed into each other creating a massive frozen wave effect. Unfortunately the next morning the winds had started to come up fairly substantially with a fair bit of blowing snow so we had very limited visibility. We made the decision to just make our way back to Mawson which was an interesting experience as since we only had a couple meters of visibility we were navigating purely off the GPS screen which does give great faith in our resources. We took our time and still made it back to Mawson in less than two hours, pulled the hagg up as close to the red shed as possible and unloaded all of our gear. By the time we had reached Mawson it was clear a blizzard was well and truly on the way so we had parked the hagg facing into the wind to ensure the wind didn’t blow the doors off. After Unloading Brilly and I jumped back into the Hagg to go and drop off our grey water and sewerage. As Brilly backed the Hagg up to turn around we noticed a strange noise from the drivers side track. We jumped out to check and found the track had jumped off the sprocket and was coming off. YAAAY! If a track comes off it is still possible to drive the hagg so I drove the hagg completely off the track dragged the track out the way then just backed the hagg straight back into EVS (Emergency Vehicle Storage) which fortunately had a spare bay since we had the SAR hagg in the workshop at the time. Not the most amazing experience having to take a track off a vehicle when you are being pelted by blowing snow but we were extremely fortunate that it happened right there instead of out in the field somewhere. During that week on the Tuesday we had a really fun event – we Celebrated Cinco De Mayo (The Mexican Day of the Dead) which was organised by our station leader Matt. Everyone dressed up with masks and Rocket put on some amazing South American food. Afterwards we had a Piñata but that was extremely short lived as Will one of our chippies went first and absolutely destroyed it with one hit. There were quite a few Margaritas had that night so it was lucky the next day had already been organised as a day off. The most interesting thing that has happened lately was that we have finally had our first proper Antarctic blizzard. So far we’ve had really favourable weather and even the veterans have been commenting how lucky we have been. Until last week!!! Once weather has been coded ‘Red’ any outside travel must be in at least pairs and radio communication before and upon arriving at buildings. Monday was coded but luckily for me once I’m in the work shop I don’t really have to move around all that much and at this stage the winds were about 70 knots. As there are some renovations going on inside the red shed at the moment there are a few wooden boxes of pats and supplies stored outside the red shed. The wind blew a couple of these boxes apart spraying ply wood and light fittings all around the station. The decision was made that everyone had to return to the red shed before dark (about 3pm at the moment) to minimise the risk of anyone getting hit by debris. That night the winds continued to gust to over 100 knots so we were not allowed to go outside at all until the weather cleared. By about 10am the next day the weather had eased up a bit so a small group of people went out to asses the damage and see if there was any risk of more debris. A couple machines had smashed windows and a couple buildings had holes punched in them. The winds were still up around the 40-50 knots range for a couple days after but we had definitely been through the worst. Unfortunately though the winds were still strong enough to actually break up and blow away most of the sea ice around Mawson which was just over 80cm thick before the storm. We still have ice in Horse Shoe Harbour but most of the ice I was walking on a couple weeks ago is now completely gone. This means we will not be able to travel out to the Emperor Penguin rookeries for probably another couple of months as we wait for the ice to grow back.
Hope all is well back home,
Stay safe, Guy
Guy's Antarctica Adventure 2020 