Rambling Rauers Tour 2012 Part 2

hello everybody and sorry about the delay for the Rambling Rauers Tour Part 2. the last week has been quite random; all of us ended up having a 5-night binge, no, celebration cum farewell, because we kept thinking that it was Joe and Cathie's last night (they eventually flew off on Saturday morning, after having been told that they were flying off the Monday before). we've had new people on station now, so far they have all been Canadians and are pilots and engineers of fixed-wing aircrafts. the first time i saw a new face, i baulked, got all shy, tongue-tied and shit, fled away from the bar and down to the kitchen and realised that i have lost all my abilities to interact with strangers.

ANYWAY, without further ado, here is part two. (i am so poetic sometimes, it scares me le sigh).


before arriving at the Hop Island hut, we poked around Filla Island, which had a little two-man apple (although, here wrongly named as the Hop Island Hut). Filla and Hop Islands are primarily used over summer by penguin biologists for their research work into penguins and snow petrels.


exterior and interior of the Hop Island Hut. It isn't a hut like the ones we have in the Vestfold Hills, but more like a spaceship, or as someone has mentioned, like a giant Smartie. sleeps three comfortably, very spacious, and while we were there, we had a fourth person sleeping on the floor while two more tented it in the Polar Pyramid.


PENIS ROCK! this delectable geological artwork of Nature was stumbled upon only a few hundred meters away from the Hop Island smartie. Adam pointed it out, how nice. all of us spent the next day exploring Hop Island, observing the penguins and taking in the cliffs that surrounded the island.


nah, moar seals, now with added Baby, just for you.


one more look at Brown Glacier before heading back to Davis.


that's me next to one of hundreds of crevasses that we had to cross. They typically look like this, covered with a snow bridge to lure unsuspecting wanderers into their icy-blue depths. This one was wider than me (as you can tell) but it was in no way the biggest we'd seen.


Back on the Vestfolds side of the seaice, one holey iceberg to cap off the journey!

The End.

WAH another post! what the hell, mel, you got so hardworking mehhhhh???

ahem.

it's not that i've suddenly regained my journalistic (HAHAHA journalistic) flair or anything, but i just thought i'd like to highlight something on this blog. let's say, like the timeline function on facebook, i want to be able to record a life event, an occasion, or a milestone, if you like. tranquilo, parents, no i'm not getting married or having a baby.

yesterday was the 23rd of October 2012, which marked exactly a year since i left the wharf at Hobart bound for the great white blight! admittedly, it doesn't mark a year since i've been on the continent (which will fall some time around November 6th, i think), however, it DOES mark a year since i left the Real World behind.

how quickly a year comes and goes! who knew (surely not me) that i would end up spending a year down here? all those messages, well-wishes and au revoirs that i sent out prior to leaving was capped with an 'I'll see you in 6 months!'. well, that 6 months got doubled and now, here i am, staring down the double-barrel of a year.

so much has happened to me over the last 12 months - i feel like i've acquired a lifetime of memories, stories and experiences. anyway, to keep this short, i'll just produce a list of 12 things that i've learnt in 12 months.

1. the body's thermoregulation system is AMAZING. i've been walking around with little more than a thick-ish t-shirt and track pants outside because of the warm temperatures we have been getting, but get this: IT IS STILL -3degC OUT THERE WHAT THE FUUUCKKK???? i am awesome.

2. after having spent 3 months of continuous sunlight, and 3 months of continuous twilight/darkness, i have decided that i am very much a NIGHT person. the sun is all well and good if you're by the beach, but please give me my night and stars by 8pm LATEST thanks.

3. those use-by/best-by dates on your food packages? i am going to ignore all of them from now on. juice, biscuits, crackers, beers and ciders, jams, cheeses, frozen meats and seafood, chocolates, cordials, POTATOES (my god, i wish i had a photo of the potatoes that we have in the cold store to show you, you all will die seeing what we eat), tinned food - they are all good to eat even if they are a few years beyond their use-by date.

4. Adelie penguins are possibly the funniest animals you will ever see. the way they walk/run, beat each other up, steal each others' stones for their nests, freak out, eye you suspiciously and fall flat on their faces as they exit the water for land - hilarious.

5. cocktails in buckets - easy, fast, made in a big enough quantity to satisfy the masses, impressive, did i also mention easy? thailand, cambodia, laos and bali, you got it right.

6. you don't really need much to get through life: a few t-shirts, a couple of nice dresses, some comfy pants, enough panties to last you for a week and a day (the 8th panty you wear while you wash the other 7), a bit of jewellery, eye-liner. that is all.

7. there is no such thing as the green flash. i think i have burnt my retinas thrice over and over trying to catch a glimpse of this elusive (and now proven mythical) meteorological phenomenon. wikipedia will tell you more about it.

8. true love is not even batting an eyelid when you ask if you can use bottle after bottle of their vodka/tequila/gin to make cocktails and saying ok.

9. true true love is putting up with my million and one questions while we are watching a movie/eating dinner/drinking at the bar/driving 10 hours to the Rauers and 10 hours back/while he's working/while he's having a headache. so boys and girls, true true love means patience.

10. nicotine patches are all well and good until you get a headspin and throw up after the first hour of application. Antarctica is the place for exploration and discovery, right? right. so one night at the bar, i stuck a 12mg nicotine patch on my upper arm and...you know the rest. at least i know i will NEVER be a smoker.

11. living with just 20 other people for year is actually a piece of cake and not as crazy as i made it out to be. there are enough stories to be swapped around to keep everyone entertained.

12. this has been one of the best damned experiences in my life that money can't buy. not only that, it been a steep (but enjoyable) learning curve for me in all facets of life.

ok la the end!

Rambling Rauers Tour 2012 Part 1

it is an AVALANCHE of photos! it is a BARRAGE of photos! it is a TSUNAMI of photos! basically, what i'm trying to say is that there will be a lot of photos for you to look at once you finish reading this paragraph. i'm splitting up my Rauers photos in two parts, so this shall be Part 1.


on the way out to the plateau, we came across a jade iceberg - not a very impressive one, but a jade one nonetheless.


once we got up to the plateau, a fog rolled in and we couldn't see anything! there was blowing snow and surface definition sunk to zero. it made driving a challenge, and we were crawling along in the red Hagg at 10kmph. i spent most of my time momentarily glancing at the GPS then looking out the window then glancing at the GPS then looking out the window then...


Arriving at the end of our journey after 10 hours of driving at Macey Peninsula, we hitched up a tent for two whilst the rest (four) slept in the caravan for the night. The next day, we were down the snow ramp and onto the sea ice!


Brown Glacier, every bit as beautiful as the Sorsdal Glacier. It doesn't move anywhere near as fast as the Sorsdal, hence not much break-up of sea-ice around the front of it.


Weddell seals found around the outside (sea-side) of the island complex: all heavily pregnant and ready to pup! We even saw some that had already given birth!



ok la, that's it for now. stay tuned for the next installment of the Rambling Rauers Tour.

last night, the sky remained a deep blue with a thin band of orange on the horizon even as i was walking back to my room at 2.45 am. today, the UV meter on our weather display shot up to a Level 4 and issued a 'medium' warning.

this last week has been quite eventful for me. on monday, i left on a mega jolly for a group of islands across the Sorsdal Glacier, collectively known as the Rauers. it was a 5-day trip, and entailed two whole days travelling to and from the station to the Rauers. i drove the whole way there and it was probably one of my most memorable experiences. it was great fun climbing up the ice plateau in a Hagg and then crossing the glacier with all its crevasses, cracks and slippery blue ice. at one point of the trip, the GPS in my Hagg broke down and we were still following the track that had frozen on the screen; it led us to a bit of the glacier that had several big crevasses that all looked as though they were converging to a point. the crevasses were a bit too wide for us to cross without dropping a cab or track in to it, and so i ended up having to back the Hagg plus the trailer that was hitched onto the back of it to safety. there were a few tense moments (and words exchanged between myself and the navigator) but ultimately, everyone plus the Hagg made it to safety. it was definitely a very 'pat on the back' moment.

the Rauers in itself was an amazing place to visit. it is made up of many islands locked in by frozen sea ice in the winter and backing up onto the ice plateau. the geological formations there are also different to what you would find in the Vestfold Hills. according to our station leader (who went on the trip and is also a geologist), the Rauers are about a billion years younger than the Vestfold Hills. the islands around the Rauers are a lot more sheer-cliffed, and when we were there, the whole place was teeming with the incoming Adelie penguins, antarctic petrels and fulmars, and Weddell seals that were just beginning to pup. all in all, it was a fantastic 5-day trip, i mastered quite a few handy Antarctic survival tips, like using the FUD aka female urinary device. i am also a certified full Antarctic expeditioner now, i.e. i had a crap out in the field HAHA. i tried to hold on for the whole 5 days while i was out there, thinking that i would be able to make it back to station for a dump, but Nature had other plans for me. nevertheless, i managed to hold on for 3 days before the levy broke, and i'm still pretty proud of that fact.

in other news, it has really hit home now that Winter is coming to an end. when we got back from the Rauers, we were told that two of our wintering party will be leaving early on the plane due to medical reasons. it was quite a shock to me, because it happened so abruptly. but then again, i guess things happen that way in Antarctica as nothing is ever certain here. a Twin Otter plane is due to arrive some time late next week, and that will truly signal the end of winter. everything is happening so fast!

i'd be lying if i said that i haven't been feeling a bit sentimental or nostalgic the last few days. this place that i have come to call 'home' for the last 12 months is about to cease being just that. i don't know if i'll ever see many of the 20 people i've spent a year with, but i guess time will tell. i can't describe how this place makes me feel, except that, for a month into the dead of winter, i was probably loathing being 'confined' here but now that it is all coming to an end, i am sorry to see it go. the sea ice, the snow, the icebergs, the penguins, the people and the camaraderie, the stunning sunsets, the auroras, the never-ending twilight in summer and the dark days of winter - all that, i will miss.

more photos to come!

summer is here! ARRRGHHHH! the mercury has been climbing surely and steadily into the minus -teens now (and sometimes even going above 10!). the UV rays pouring through the great big ozone hole is relentlessly burning into my fragile skin. at midnight last night, there was still a thin layer of orange light on the horizon wtfff. the Adelies have returned YA ALLAH if that is not a sure sign that summer is here, i don't know what else is.


The first of many little guys to come WHOO HOO!

all this is so exciting but scary! there is now 7 and a half weeks before the ship arrives on station and i'm part excited, part relieved yet part apprehensive. each time i go out onto the ice, i get this wistful longing in me; a feeling that i might never be able to see/do/feel these things again. i guess with time hanging over your head like a doomsday clock, one is bound to feel this way. suddenly i find myself imbued with a whole new sense of urgency and motivation to go out and 'do' stuff. i guess i just don't want to look back upon this time with regret and realise that i spent the majority of my days sitting on a sofa with my laptop turned on staring out the window.


Sunset over Watts Lake.



so, with all this newfound enthusiasm, i went out on a 2-night jolly to Watts Hut AGAIN! it was a lot easier going this time around because there wasn't much snow drifts on the fjords and we could zip our way to the hut with ease and speed. there is really nothing like slipping and sliding over blue ice in a quad to really feel the exhilaration of speed. all 3 of us were zooming down the fjord sideways, doing doughnuts, rings, circlework and fishtails to no end. it was fantastic. driving in a car is going to be so 'meh' from now on.


Crooked Lake apple, overlooking ... CROOKED LAKE!



more exploration of the frozen freshwater lakes behind Watts Hut was to be had when we got there, and when the night became dark enough, we went down to Watts Lake, drilled a hole in the lake ice and illuminated all the cracks and bubbles - it was surreal. what was more surreal, and slightly unnerving, was hearing the ice crackle and squeak beneath our feet. if it wasn't for the fact that the ice was about 1m thick, I would've been a bit worried about falling through.


Lights, camera...ACTION!

i'm gonna make a new pact with myself, to keep my exercising pact company - from this week on i'm going to try and go out for as many jollies as i can possibly fit in! fuck work and responsibilities (ok la, not totally fuck work and responsibilities la, i'll just work and be responsible ENOUGH so that i can go out on jollies without any feelings of guilt), the remainder of my time here and now will be dedicated to exploring this land. work can be done any time, any day and any where, but my chance to explore Antarctica will be coming to an end, and i definitely know which one i want to prioritise.


Proof that there are only two things certain in life: Death and the Tax-man!


Ohai, iz me! Just in case you guys forgot how I look.

this will be welcomed news to my parents, especially my mother, whom in the last couple of months, has taken an avid interest in this subject and never fails to inquire about this subject every time i am on the phone. i'm putting it down here, as a reminder to myself to honour my intentions, and if it doesn't succeed in the long run, i give all of you permission to make fun of me when i get out of Antarctica! but no calling ultra mean names ok?

i'm going to the gym! today will be my 5th time since coming to Antarctica (HAHA!) and this sudden motivation was spurred by the fact that, seeing as i'm about to re-enter the real world again in a mere 8 weeks' time (i.e. 8 weeks till i step foot in Hobart), i cannot afford to be blase and complacent about my appearances anymore. there are people to impress and to gain approvals from. i confess that i've turned into a fatty since coming to Davis, i've indulged in any and EVERY sorts of desserts that take my fancy, i've drunk copious amounts of alcohol and eaten peanut butter toast for dinner whenever i felt like it. but no more; this practice is about to be put to an end.

i've set myself a target, to lose enough weight to put myself in the sub-60kg range again. that means i have to get rid of ~3kgs give or take, depending on if i had a crap and a wee before i weighed myself, and also if i'm feeling dehydrated for the day. i've asked around, and it seems that losing 3kgs in 8 weeks is doable. so we shall see how that goes.

what i'm trying to say is: if i still look like a fatty when i get home, you have all the right to tell me so and hopefully that will be drastic enough to make me adopt some sort of eating disorder as a last measure. WISH ME LUCK!