A Wander around the Ob Hill Loop track

Quick post to get some more photos up..

So we had a bit lot of snow last Thursday- massive flakes, with no wind.. Pretty impressive. It was American Night at the bar, so here's a photo of some americans walking in..


Mmmm, snow.

Then on Friday we managed to get out and dig our hole down through to snow to the sea-ice. This was so that we could drill through the ice to measure from the sea-level to the GPS for our tide calibration. The hole ended up being about a metre deep, and 2x3m in size.
Then we had a bit of a blizzard on Saturday, so when we went out to check our hole today it looked like this:


I'm glad I put the GPS on a little shelf instead of in the bottom of the hole, otherwise we would've been forced to dig it out to ensure it was still going.

Today (Sunday), there was an art & craft market on at McMurdo, so we went for a wander over to take a look. We decided to tie in a walk around the Observation Hill Loop Track, which goes around the bottom/middle of the hill. It was a really nice walk!


There are quite a few trails around the Hut Point penninsula (where McMurdo and Scott Base are). They usually have these markers.

Glen on the track- the little bit of uphill..

Wandering along.

Still going. Quite a well defined and easy track really. Even with the snow drifts on some parts.

Looking down at McMurdo.

Overnight at Cape Evans with AHT

Hi guys,I'll try and make it quick, as the bar's been opened early as it's a bit of a holiday down here, and its not really outdoors weather. The base staff got the afternoon off today, as the Americans at McMurdo are celebrating Thanksgiving. They tend to saturday-ise holidays down here, so that you get the Saturday and Sunday off (seeing as its a 6 day working week). There's also a bit of a storm going on. While the temperatures are really warm (-6.7°C), there's a lot of wind going on- ~40 knots (a knot is about 1.8km/h). This makes the windchill around the -30°C mark. We also had a fair bit of snow a couple of days ago, so that's getting blown all over the place out there- spindrift.

We set up our GPS out on the sea-ice in front of Scott Base yesterday (which involved digging a 1x3x2m hole in the snow first to get to the ice). So we're hoping that it hasn't been blown away. We would go out to check, but the weathers too bad. We're getting glimpses of it through the spindrift, so we know its still there.. We guyed it down, and it's kinda sheltered by the hole, so fingers crossed. I also splashed some water round the legs to help freeze it in. Will try and get some photos next time we go out- there was a lot of spindrift when we were setting it up, so not good for photos.

Anyway, this post is about a couple of days (Wednesday and Thursday) which we spent at Cape Evans.This was the base for Captain Robert Falcon Scott's expedition to the South Pole, from which he never returned. (His ship was called the Terra Nova, for the record). The Antarctic Heritage Trust conservators (see a previous post) have just moved to this hut, after completing work at Shackletons hut at Cape Royds. They're working out of converted shipping containers which are currently sitting on the sea-ice. They camp on the land a couple of hundred metres away (apparently the polar tents are warmer).

So we were doing similar work at Evans as we were doing at Royds- surveying the hut for vertical movement. We also did some other work for the AHT- surveying some features around the site which can be used for the relative positioning of artifacts that will be discovered in the ice surrounding the hut. A recent problem at Cape Evans has been the buildup of ice and snow around the southern side of the hut. A few years ago you were able to step directly from the snow onto the roof, and there's still over 1.5m of solid ice in places! To counter this 5 'vortex generators' were installed last week to try and stop the wind from depositing snow around the hut. They're also putting gravel (scoria) on top of the ice so that the sun melts it. Anyway, we did some cross-sections so that the level of melting will be able to be quantified.

It was great to spend a night there- talking to the conservators about their work and just being away from base was good. Glen and I slept in a wannigan (a little hut on a sled), which was ok, except for the wind which we were sure was going to push us all the way across McMurdo Sound!

I found Scott's hut to have a completely different feel to Shackleton's. At Shackleton's you walked into this big open space, and there was a lot of light streaming in. Scott's on the other hand, felt dark and cold, and everything was broken up into cubicles a lot more. Scott's hut was also used by Shackleton's marooned Ross Sea Party, and they burnt a lot of seal blubber in the hut, so the soot from that darkened the place, but it definitely had a different feel. Shackleton's was welcoming, whereas at Scott's you felt like you shouldn't be there..

Anyway, onto the photos:


Uncovering a dog skeleton which has been covered up to help preserve it.


Jana, one of the conservators walking back to their camp.


Looking across McMurdo Sound.

Geared up for some Antarctic surveying. Note the head-torch!

Here's why I needed the torch- so that we could see the tape in the dark stables.

Glen in the stables.

Pony snow-shoes!!

Seal blubber. I think its from Shackleton's marooned Ross Sea Party, who used the hut later.

Inside the hut.

Mmmm, cocoa...

Some mustard.

Everything was stamped.

More boxes.

More cocoa.

They drank lots of cocoa.

Good South Canterbury cheese!

Food for the journey.

Some chemistry stuff...

Inside the darkroom.

Captain Robert Falcon Scott's cubicle. This is where one of the more famous photos of him was taken.

Another view of the hut.

The Vortex Generators in action!

Vortex Generators and the hut.

Some photos of a Polar Bear* I saw...

Part of a programme to relocate them here seeing as the Arctic ice is almost all gone..

*Toy

Let me know if you were convinced.. :-)

Cape Royds- History and Penguins!!

EDIT: Forgot the watermark, so gotta post again..


Hi All,
Sorry it's been a while since the last post. We're down to the last couple of weeks now, so I'm trying to do as much as I can instead of being in front of a computer doing these things! We've also been quite busy the last couple of days including another night away from base.

So, on Tuesay (the 25th) we hopped in a Hagglund with Ian, and headed out to Cape Royds, to do our survey work on the hut. Cape Royds is the site of Sir Ernest Shackleton's hut from his Nimrod Expedition. This was the trip that he got to within 100 miles of the pole, but realised he couldn't make it to the pole and back alive. In a letter to his wife, he wrote that it is better to be a "live donkey than a dead lion."

This is the first hut to be conserved by the Antarctic Heritage Trust people, and its pretty impressive the state its in. I'd really recommend looking at their website- they do some amazing work. They've moved onto Scott's hut at Cape Evans, but more about that in a future blog.

So our work is looking at some marks which we've installed on the building, and seeing if they're moving up or down. We have marks both outside the hut and on the floor. It's great to be doing work for such a good organisation, and I know that its personally the most rewarding work I've done down here.

Royds is also home to the southern-most Adele Penguin colony in the world. At the moment it's all males sitting on the eggs, while the females are off feeding. The sea-ice hasn't broken out as much as usual so far this year (it's still at Beaufort Island), so there's some concern that the females may not come back, as it's quite a walk!!

So yeah, now for some photos, as I'm knackered after digging a big hole in the snow for our tide gauge calibrations..

I'll try and put another couple of posts up this weekend.



Glen setting up the level outside the hut.


Glen with the instrument inside the hut. Taken from near the door.


Again, Glen surveying inside the hut.


Me on the staff inside the hut.


Some condensed soup tins.


Pure Preserved Cabbage anyone?


Inside the hut.


Mmmmm, Cod Roes!!


Birds Egg Powder that isn't made from eggs?


Boy, what a selection!


The hut, with Erebus in the background.


The hut from the other side. The penguin colony's in the background.


Penguins!


Going for a wander..


Some people are doing some study on them. It's involved fencing some of them off. I wonder how the females get back into the fenced bit. One was trying to escape down the bottom..


Trying to take off..


Lying on the nests..


Bit of a sing-along..


The main access route for them to get to the colony.


A little bit of rearranging..


Me outside the hut with Erebus in the background.


Warren the lone penguin that hangs out at Cape Evans.


He came really close to me!


He only noticed me when I moved- even with my bright orange on!


Wandering off..


Waddling off..

We stopped in at Cape Evans on the way back- this is Jana, one of the conservators. They were having trouble with the conservation of the stove at Evans, because it had a lot of blubber burned in it when the hut was used by Shackleton's Ross Sea Party...