This week’s edition of ‘This Week at Macquarie Island’ focuses on the holiday season festivities — celebrating Christmas, Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve at Macca in real style.
The hunters returned to station on the 23rd Dec which meant we had all 31 Macquarie Island expeditioners on station for the holiday season. The team gathered in Market Square for a BBQ on Christmas Eve — a fabulous calm and warm-ish afternoon. Charles entertained everyone by playing Christmas Carols on his trumpet with everyone joining in with interesting versions of what they thought the tunes or words were.
Christmas Day started with a brunch followed by a very long lunch. Our glasses were raised numerous times in recognition of our year, new friends and our loved ones back home.
Santa arrived in the afternoon escorted by a very attractive team of helpers and we were all given the opportunity to sit on Santa’s knee and receive our presents. Mrs Claus also paid us a visit and we now know why Mr Claus likes to spend a lot of time on the road with his reindeers.
Boxing Day also ended up being a busy day with the annual Macquarie Island dog race, cricket, volleyball and games of Twister.
On the 27th Dec the Spirit of Enderby arrived and we said goodbye to Mel, Colin and Dave who have been with us for eight months. At the same time we welcomed Doc Cad, Chris, Simon, Bruce, Corrine, Al, Grant and Josie to the team.
Many monsters and scary characters attended the New Year’s Eve party and surprisingly despite their sinister and violent backgrounds it appeared the mess (dining area) had a charming influence over everyone — it was a very entertaining, enjoyable and long night.
The team were also involved in guiding tourists around station and Sandy Bay, the Rangers and a few helpers completed track work and the entire comms building was rewired just to name a few of the many jobs completed during the past two weeks. This week, however, we’ve decided just to publish the ‘holiday’ photos…enjoy.
