Community Duties

There may be about 70 here at Casey station now, but all are employed in specific roles that keep the station maintained and running, or more specifically completing science projects. There is no-one specific to complete the everyday (housekeeping) duties around the station..... so everyone on station will get 'rostered' to different roles from time to time. These roles might include cleaning and vacuuming the common or lounge areas, or collecting rubbish from the various areas in the red shed, or 'Slushy', which is working in the kitchen for the day, and this might involve peeling potatoes or carrots, food preparation and cooking, cleaning down the kitchen and mess room areas...... but more than likely washing what seems like thousands of pots and pans.

Hard at it....'Slushy' Duties

I know that I have now been here for a few weeks.... but I have been putting together a few short video clips. This first one covers the flights down here on the Airbus from Hobart, and also the Hercules flight from McMurdo to Casey.... I am working on few others for the following blog entries, and these will include the trip out to the penguins on Shirley Island, and a bit of a look around the station.

The past week or so has seen very little change in the weather conditions. We have not seen much in the way of wind, with most days being fine, and temps between about -8c and -2c. This has meant that outside of work hours, many people have still been able to get off station, with group setting off on a cross country ski to the old Wilkes station and back (a trip of about 15 klms).

I may not have set off on the trip to Wilkes, but have been trying a bit of Cross Country Skiing. Having only got on snow skis' for the first time about 2 years ago, I would not call myself more than a 'novice' skier..... in fact my 9 year old daughter could probably give me a few lessons. None the less I was out there giving it a go (besides, how can you pass up to chance to say you have been cross country skiing in Antarctica!).

I must say though, this is a place of Ice, and given that, there is not too much soft powdery snow, but LOTS of HARD ice. This means that for an amateur like me, it's like ice skating, but with skis' on, and although I only fell once or twice..... it's a pretty hard fall.

In the last week the Twin Otter aircraft have flown over to Mario Zucchelli station (Italian), to complete some work there. But in the mean time a Basler aircraft has arrived, the Basler is based on a DC3.

With amount of daylight increasing, last weeks full moon is likely to be the last that I see until I arrive back in Australia in Mid February next year, so I made the effort to get up at 0430 am to see it. With the reduced light/zoom, the quality of the picture is not great, but below is the full moon over the icebergs from Casey station.

Full moon over the icebergs

Below are just a few other random pictures from the past week or so.

View over old Wilkes station to the Icebergs

Broken sea ice in Newcomb Bay

The 2nd of December marks 100 years since Mawson's voyage left Hobart bound for Antarctica. Below I added a few links to various articles that have been recently published in newspapers.

Sydney Morning Herald article on members of Mawsons' expedition party
Border Mail article on members of Mawsons' expedition party
Kitting out of expeditioners