A Southern Christmas 2001 - Day 12 (A jolly)

 Greetings readers, where ever you are. I trust you have had an enjoyable couple of days, and if you been fortunate enough to share it with your family and loved ones, even better. If not, my thoughts go out to you.

If you have been observant, you will be asking yourself, what happened to Day 11? An excellent question. I have no idea either, it was over twenty years ago, and since it is true that I did not add a diary entry for every day, I am going to assume I was too busy working on the project to spend more time writing my journal. Or maybe the book I was reading was simply too unputdownable (it was Lord of the Rings if I remember correctly). We'll never know.

It's not the first time there are missing entries from the journal, but I will continue to post them on the same date, consistent with the date they were written, so that the continuity is still there.

Enjoy...

Thursday 27^th December 2001

Casey Base

Today was a day for a jolly. In Antarctic terms, a jolly is defined as an excursion away from base for recreational purposes. The expression probably goes back to the eighteenth century when the jolly boat would be used by seafarers for occasional jaunts.

Our jolly was to visit a refuge about 15 km south of Casey base called Robinson’s Ridge, or more simply Robbos. We travelled there by Hagg, those wonderful tracked all-terrain vehicles, built in Sweden with a Mercedes-Benz engine which go almost anywhere and are built to float if they fall through the ice, which they occasionally do, but not on our trip I’m pleased to report.

Martin Riddle, who has been our host for the past couple of days, was our driver and tour guide again today as seven of us climbed into the front and back cabs of the Hagg. Passengers in the front cab ride in comparative comfort complete with headset communication and relatively comfortable seats. The rear cab is usually reserved for the gear but has bench type seats which three of us were able to squeeze into and for safety purposes, we were provided with a two-way radio in case of emergency.

It was a great opportunity for us to look at some of the real wilderness and desolation of this great white continent. When we stopped about halfway through our journey for a photo break it was clear to us all that like all the other coastal stations, Casey Base makes up but a miniscule portion of this vast region. All around us, for as far as we could see was whiteness. The landscape to the east and south of us slopes gently away to what eventually becomes the great Antarctic plateau. To the southwest, we could see across Newcomb Bay and beyond to the massive Vanderford Glacier, which although wider at its mouth than the entire Casey station limits, is itself comparatively small by Antarctic standards.

Now is a good time to mention that when I say we stopped for a photo break - that is all we stop for in this untarnished wilderness. There are no trees behind which one goes to relieve oneself, everything that gets taken in, must be taken out. If you need to relieve yourself, take a plastic bag and bring it back with you because under the conditions of the Treaty, everything that is waste or no longer being used must be returned to Australia. This is why it is so important to rectify the mistakes of our past – not just in Australian Antarctica, which is just an example, but in the whole area of human development and activity – and make good the damage we have already done.

We arrived at Robbos in bright sunshine, and a temperature of three degrees below zero, almost warm enough for short sleeves. No wonder this is a popular spot for jollies with the expeditioners. We really were in a most beautiful part of the region. At Robbos we could see across to the penguin colony on Odbert Island and as we sat on the rocks overlooking the bay, we were able to watch in fascination as a couple of these curious and wonderful creatures, the Adelie Penguins came along to inspect us.

Penguins are the icons of Antarctica. They live only in the southern hemisphere from the Antarctic to the Galapagos. They are flightless birds which spend most of their time at sea where they feed on fish and krill, and coming on land for extended periods to breed.

They have no land-based predator and thus appear not to fear humans. They are apparently quite short-sighted and it’s most amusing to watch one of these creatures standing about two or three metres from us and quizzically turn its head as though to peer more closely through one eye. Then it will turn and dive back into the sea, where at once it is transformed from a comical and awkward little land animal to a graceful and elegant amphibian powering through the ocean, like a soaring porpoise. The greatest feat, and a marvellous spectacle to observe, is the penguin’s trick of projecting itself out of the water in a vertical standing position, to land upright on the edge of the ice, several feet above the water it has left. When several of them do this together it almost makes you want to clap your hands as a sign of appreciation for this wonderful trick.