Trip to Bunger Hills

I was lucky enough - by lucky - i mean SUPER DOOPER luckiest of luck lucky to get a trip to Bunger Hills by CASA aircraft. The journey is somewhere in the vicinity of 360km away from Casey heading west along the coast. It is a beautiful trip where you get to see glaciers and icebergs and crevasses all from a totally different vantage point. The reason that they go to this place called Bunger hills is to cache fuel drums there. They need to do this because it is a stop on the journey from Davis station during intracontinental flights over summer. Bunger hills is spectacular with lakes and rocky areas. The area surrounding it is a glacier and just entirely like nothing i have ever seen before. It is kind of like a landscape i would expect to see on mars or somewhere like that!

So, I got to go along for the ride with Dan and Al the pilots. At Bunger hills we touched down with the engine still running and kicked out 4 drums of fuel. After that, we did some ski dragging in an area called Mill Island. Ski dragging is a rather daunting prospect to someone like myself who's not so sure about this whole flying in Antarctica situation! Basically, the glaciologist's have earmarked Mill Island as a potential location for some ice coring research, but before the plane can land and operations can start out there the site has to be reconnaissanced to see if there are any hidden dangers lying just below the frozen surface such as crevasses etc. This is where the pilots fly low to the grounds surface and lightly touch the ski's of the plane down for a couple of hundred metres. Then they fly back over the drag marks and look for any obvious depressions along the way. This is an effective method but let me tell you being inside the plane when it is done is just a little on the nerve racking side!

Nonetheless, it made for a very exciting trip for me!

Trip to Skiway to see the Basler aircraft and CASA

 

 

 

 

Myself, Jenn, Brendan and Steve all set off one Saturday afternoon after work to see the Basler (converted DC-3) which had been flown to Casey for a Geosurvey by a bunch of Canadians. The trip was loads of fun, we took quads and had a bit of a wander around up there just for a couple of hours before heading back in time for dinner. Bit of a different and fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon around here.

International Relations

 

 

 

We had such a good time aboard the Xue Long. It was just very nice to get off the station for a few hours R and R. The photo of us in the cage is how we got on and off the ship - just a little bit scary!! The group photo is the ferry trip home where we are all in much higher and merrier spirits than we arrived in - thanks to a little bit of Reeb (that is beer spelt backwards, at least that is what the Chinese guys kept telling me as they gave me one after another!!).

All aboard the Xue Long

 

 

 

 

Here we are having drinks and dinner with the extremely hospitable Chinese. Remarkably aboard the Xue Long you are only permitted to smoke inside your accommodation or in the mess - There is absolutely no smoking outside - WEIRD!!!

A taste of leaving station

 

Yeah, but only for a few hours... it'll be a year before i am doing this good and proper!

Bound for China

 

Here a bunch of us are aboard the ferry to head out to the Chinare ship for a night of dinner and drinks. Cool.

sporty spice

 

Yes, i have taken up a sport - well ok, it is only table tennis - known here simply as pong - but nevertheless, i am playing sport so that has to be good right?? hehehe

Emergency Power House

 

We here at Casey station usually run our power from the Main Power house which contains 4 generator sets (2 of which run at any given time). Over summer an upgrade had to be done within the main power house that required us to run on the Emergency Power house for 2 weeks. Here in this photo is myself, Allen the other wintering sparky and Anthony one of 4 wintering diesel mechanics near engine number 1 (of 2) in the emergency power house. We had just done a small job on a temperature sensor on the engine.

Potable Water Tank Cleaning

 

 

An annual maintenance task here at Casey is to clean out one of the three potable water tanks within the tankhouse on a rotating roster each year. This year I was asked to help out the plumbers as i am able to use the breathing apparatus that is required. The job is a very large undertaking. Basically the tank is covered in a rusty scaling that needs to be blasted off with the high pressure hose and then when you get to the bottom it needs to be vacuumed out. The job took myself and Brendan 2 full days including set up and pack away. Although it was a lot of work, it was pretty fun because it is not the normal day to day jobs that i am used to!

Friday drinks in the workshop

Each Friday we try to have drinks at a different location throughout the station. This is a good way to see the other areas that are not in your usual area of work. One week it was the workshops turn, so we put on a combined effort held in the dieso's workshop. A front end loader bucket of snow was transported into the shop for putting the beer in and a table tennis table was knocked up by the chippies and a round robin of ping pong was held with the eventual winner being a fellow sparky. Great night was had by everyone.

Travelling home from Robbo's

more robbo's

more robbo's

 
 
 
 

Ski Jolly to Robbo's Hut

 

 

 

 

One evening in early January right after work a group of intrepid skiers (Tod, Rocket, Terry and Steve G) and myself (i'm not intrepid enough - i was the support hagg driver) headed off to Robbo's hut which is a distance of around 14km from station. It was a stunning evening, very calm and blue skies. Views that i could take in from the sundeck on top of the hagg whilst waiting for the boys to catch up were phenomenal! Once we were at the hut we had a beautiful pasta meal and a few bevvies followed by a spectacular walk in the sunset greeted by a lone penguin who seemed as enchanted by us as we were by it. Ufortunately we had to depart early the next morning to get back for work, but it had been a lovely night away regardless.

Bus trip to Wilkins

This is inside the bus that takes travellers to and from Wilkins Runway. It is nickamed Priscilla - i suppose because it is queen of our antarctic desert!!