Walkabout

A couple of days after my sister's wedding (see a couple of posts below) I went off station on a 6 day walk. I made it down to Hurd point again and had a lovely rest day down there. I also met up with many of the expeditioners who are based in the field, which was very nice indeed. However the most amazing thing to happen was a perfectly calm, still, bright, glorious sunny day - I was even able to take off the gortex outer layer we generally get around in.

One of the expeditioners mentioned that that sort of doesn't come around too often, maybe once every 5 or so years.

Moon rise out of Green Gorge Hut

Mt Hamilton on a fantastic day

Mt Jeffryes looking a little tamer than the last time I was there. See the post from a few months ago

Looking towards Carrick bay, to the west of Windy Ridge (which was only breezy)

 

Round 1: Fight!

They can move fairly quickly for something that weighs around 3 tonnes.

This guy decided I was interesting enough to come and have a close look at

More Giant Petrel photos, these birds are the pterodactyls around here.

Aurora over Hurd Point Hut

Aurora to the south of Waterfall Bay Hut

 

 

 

Other Birds of Macca: Skuas

There's plenty of different birds around here. Most are native and others are introduced (either by humans or by themselves). There's even a couple of native species that are are endemic, which I suppose is nice for them. I'll be making some posts about birds that aren't penguins. As cute as the penguins are, I can't neglect the other wildlife.

Skua, keeping watch for any food coming along.

Today I'm looking at one of the scavenging birds, Skuas (sometimes pronounced skoo-uhs, sometimes skewers; depends who you talk to). These guys are cheeky bastards. They'll get into any and everything they can, including waiting for the afterbirth when seal pups are calved. They're also not afraid of human movement and watch very closely with beady, evil eyes. When a number of them decide to flock together for a feed they'll take the eyes of whatever animal they're going for first and then proceed to tear it to shreds - usually helped out by any passing Giant Petrels (the petrels are bigger and will stake a kill or carcass from a skua).

Waiting for the pup's feeding time

This skua decided taking the spilt milk was easier than trying to annoy the pup into dropping milk

2 Weddings...

My little sister is getting married today, it's a shame I can't be there (being here and all that), but I'm there in spirit... and on cardboard. Congratulations, I know you'll have a fantastic day and don't forget to send some photos.

Also, over in the UK, my friends Vicki & Steve are getting married today. Congratulations to the two of you.

Spring has sprung

And the animals are returning to the island for the breeding season. This is really exciting as we've been able to watch a few male elephant seals having fairly large fights as they jockey for position. Apparently the larger ones - the beach masters - are still to arrive.

We've also had the penguins starting to turn up and make their nests - right next to work! On Monday morning there were about 5 penguins and by the afternoon there this many:

They're so cute to watch waddling around and chasing each other off their prime piece of real estate. Many more will be turning up shortly and the first elephant seal pups will be born over the next couple of weeks.

The station

Some people have been requesting a bit of an understanding of the station layout. The purple labels are our dongas (dorm buildings), green for work areas and other colours for other places of interest.

Otherwise this week was both busy and quiet... busy and fun times had by all for the few days the MIPEP people were back on station and quiet at all other times.

Trekking

No, that has nothing to do with that sci-fi series. I'm talking about 5 days worth of walking that included being snowed on, falling into boggy patches of ground, being blown over by the wind and walking down a scree slope. Brilliant!

This little adventure was taken with Danny the Chef. We covered about 70km taking in various parts of the coastline and a little place called Windy Ridge. Funnily enough the name is absolutely perfect for the area as we were scattered by gusts in excess of 50kts. While we walked over this exposed part of the island we had to lean into the wind in order to stay mostly on our feet. Other fantastic places we visited were: Lusitania Bay - home of the largest king penguin colony on the island; and Hurd Point - the southern most point on the island and the southern most point in Australian Territories. The Antarctic territories are only considered claims by the international community and as such Australia doesn't own those parts.

I think I'll leave the photos to do the rest of the talking in this one.

Chef Lachie and his Half tortilla stacks

Lusitania Bay

Penguin carcass (cue the Lin King soundtrack)

Fuzzy King penguin chicks

Round 1, Fight!

Cormorant

Big fella

The aliens have been leaving crop circles here too. (Photo by Danny)

Danny the Chef climbing the grassy hill to the top of the escarpment above Hurd Point Hut

View of Hurd Point Hut from the top of the scree

Walking down the scree slope (photo by Danny)

Ben T, Sandy, Danny and Bondy the spaniel on the furthest accessible part of Hurd Point

The fallen pillar. Very pretty archway.

Red River bathed in what passes as sunshine around here.

When I eventually get some semblance of a map of Macca I'll put the trips onto it. In the mean time I can tell that we visited Waterfall Bay Hut, followed the coast to Hurd Point Hut and stayed for a recreation day, wandered to Green Gorge Hut over the top of the escarpment, followed the coast again to Brother's Point and finally ran trudged back to station. A very enjoyable 5 days.

Frozen Featherbed

One of the perks of being at Macca in comparison to the continental stations is that we can go off station by ourselves. Last Friday, as everything was beginning to melt, I took myself along the featherbed on the west coast to Eagle Cave. This time, however, the featherbed was a frozen crust, so the movements below foot were a lot less subtle than usual. Eagle Cave is formed in a rock stack in the middle of the featherbed and there's 4 separate caves in the area.

The day started off with the same overcast skies that are always around. Later the clouds cleared leaving a glorious sunny afternoon with low winds. Lovely.

Penguin Posse

Eagle Cave

Main Eagle Cave, with food cache

One of the smaller caves

Entrance to another of the smaller caves

A creek that had frozen

Sunny afternoon looking south to Eagle Cave

He's eyeing me off...