Last week at Antarctic Division HQ

Not really sure why the antarctic division get us back to do more training the week before departure. Everyone was so excited and bustling that I don't think much of the final training sunk in. Most of it was revision of what we had been through previously. Especially for some of the winterers that had been training at the division for months (some of the summerers only get three weeks at the division before departure).
I guess the highlight of the final week was a bit of light SAR (search and rescue) training for the winterers. Basically this involved an abseil and a rescue exercise on the coast at Blackman's Bay. For those who had abseiled before it was a pretty nice day out, but for some of the less adventurous types it was pretty hair-raising!
Here's a picture of one of the Diesel Mechanics wondering what he has got himself in for!
Not long before we are off now...

A week at home

Us winterers are lucky enough to get a week off prior to departure to spend with friends and family. I headed back to Adelaide, and managed to spend a lot of quality time with my lovely wife. We managed to sort a few more things out with regard to packing everything into storage and getting the house sorted out. Sam (my wife) is going snowboarding in Canada while I am away, so there was lots of stuff to sort out. It was very dificult to find a balance between getting stuff done ready for us to go way and spending quality time together. I think we managed a pretty good compromise.
Sam had secretly arranged for us to stay in a Hotel the first few nights back in Adelaide as a Birthday present (it was my Birthday while I was home too!). It was a fatastic idea and we had a great couple of evenings together (Sam still had to work during the day).
I also managed to visit my grandparents before heading off, which was great!
On my last night in Adelaide I had a bit of a going away bash! It was a really great night, and my family put a lot of effort into organising it. It was good to talk to friends and family one last time before heading off. I am really glad so many people came along. I got to show off my Antarctic survival gear to everyone. Here's a picture of my wife with all the gear on!
It was great to have time to say goodbye to most of my family. By saying goodbye to so many people a week before I actual get on the boat, it split up some of the pain of leaving. It wont be until the boat is pulling away from the wharf that I will have to say goodbye to Sam, Sam's Mum and my Mum who are all coming down to Hobart see me off!

Cargo Cut-off

Cargo for our voyage (the second trip of the Aurora Australis for the season - V2 for short) had to be all sorted by October 4, ready for he ship to leave on October 20. It was a bit of a stress packing my entire life into a cubic metre of cargo space. So prior to the ship going I was living out of a backpack comprising the 30kg of stuff we were allowed to take on board with us. Everything was chucked in the back of utes and vans at the various accommodations that had been provided by the antarctic division, and was taken down to the wharf, where it was all weighed and logged into the electronic consignment tracking system. Here's a pic of my stuff (4 plastic crates and a couple of cardboard boxes) on the ute. Hopefully they will magically appear in my room once we are on station. With so much stuff heading down, it is remarkable that everything got there. It was a exciting experience as it meant that we were getting very close to going. I was also looking forward (in some ways at least) to spending a week of quality time with family and friends before heading away.

Finally!

I know am finally on the Antarctic Continent (YAY!) and have a bit of time to scratch myself and start catching up on blog entries! I will try and keep things in chronological order to make things easy to follow, so it might be a while before I catch up with what is going on in the present. I apologise (it seems to be becoming a habit in this blog), but otherwise things might not make sense ...

Sorry for lack of posts...

Seem to always be apologising, but this is just a short note to say that I have been very busy getting ready for the voyage south and haven't really had time to sort out any more posts, nor am I likely to until after re-supply of the station in several weeks time. Hopefully then I will then be able to put up a lot of posts detailing what I have done since the weekend at Mt. Field. Basically I have been packing, having a great time back in Adelaide and then packing some more and training. If you are wondering where I am and what it is like, have a look at the tracks and situation reports regarding voyage 2 (links from this page: http://its-db.aad.gov.au/proms/public/schedules/sitreps.cfm). Hopefully I don't get too sea sick! Will post again as soon as possible.

On the weekend we headed out to do a walk in Mt. Field National Park, but we were thwarted by a lot of snow high up and some bad weather. I was amazed that there was so much snow at 1400 odd metres above sea-level at this time of year. I did however really enjoy the walk (thanks to the Pandanni bushwalking club for taking us), which kept quite low and took us into twilight tarn and twilight hut, both of which looked spectacular surrounded by snow (see picture).

Will probably have very few posts over the next month (and not many with pictures) as my personal laptop is being packed away as cargo, and I will be relying on my work laptop, until everything is unpacked at Davis. It is all getting very close, very exciting and a little bit scary!

Sorry for the delay between postings. Have I mentioned that life is pretty hectic. This is especially true leading up to the cargo close date, which is tomorrow! I really should be packing, but writing here is a good way of avoiding it for now.
The most important thing that has happened since my last post was getting my gear. This didn't ocur in a straight forward manner (as they didn't have me on any of their lists), but finally I managed to not only get some stuff, but actually some good stuff for taking out into the field. The pictures included are of me mucking around with some of the stuff in my hotel room (I particularly like the gimp mask...).

Anyway, the other bit of news is that I finally have a decent camera to take down with me. I ended up with a Nikon D80 wit one of the "super-zoom" style lenses (18-200mm). It seems to be a good basic set-up, but I have lots of experimenting still to do, and I will hopefully get another lens before sailing (a 30mm F1.4 prime). I think this will give me the ability to do everything I want to do down there photography-wise.

Looking forward to spending my final week with family, friends and my wife before eventually getting on the boat.