G'day, Rusty here. Welcome to the first ever instalment of my adventure around this great white continent. Strap yourself in and let’s go!
Today we're preparing for a journey to the Vestfold Hills in search of ancient relics and maybe even some long lost inhabitants. For what we're planning takes hours of meticulous planning, preparation and of course planning.
G'day mate.
Coming along on the journey with us this week is Chris, a young bloke from the city on his first trip to the continent.
I'll be showing him the ins and outs of Antarctic travel and making sure he doesn’t get himself into too much trouble.
Now, I was just explaining to this young, inexperienced bloke here one can never underestimate the importance of securing your load securely with a series of FTO-approved knots. And as any FTO will tell you, if you can’t tie knots, tie half inch lots.
Now naturally there’s plenty of work to be done before we can take off. Let’s load up these quads and head on out.
First stop will be over to the Met building to get a weather prediction for the next few days.
Now, whilst Davis station has an array of state-of-the-art weather sensing technology and equipment, of course nothing beats years of solid outdoor experience and a good old look up at the sky. But let’s go.
A quick trip upstairs and we'll find our mate Jason hard at it.
G'day, Jase.
Rusty!
Now the Met folks work pretty hard to bring us the best predictions they can but they can’t always be 100%.
But luckily for us, old Rusty knows exactly what he’s doing.
And, ahh… so obviously this is your weather ensemble, yeah? For the pressure for the next couple of days?
Ah, nuh, Rusty. That’s a drawing from my niece.
Oh.
Let’s not waste too much time though. We best be getting over to the workshop.
Here we'll find the station’s best mechanics doing their finest work.
Let’s hope they've got time to squeeze us in though.
Now the last thing we want in the field is any mechanical breakdowns.
That’s why we've got Steve here giving everything the once over just to make sure it’s tickety-boo.
Isn’t that right, Steve?
Isn’t that right, mate?
Now a quick step in to see the plumbers.
Alright. Oh, Jesus!
And then we'll be heading on in to comms to grab our radios for the trip.
Of course it pays to check your comms equipment before you take it out in the field because it’s the only link you have back to the folks back here that can rescue you if needed.
Copy, Chris.
So, I was just telling Chris here the importance of navigating in the field and knowing where your north point is when you need it to get you out of a real bind.
So what you can do… is your trusty clock… a straight edge off any household object… so you're going to line up this with this… draw a line here to here… point that at the sun… and there you go… you're on your way.
Now it’s time to be collecting one of the most important things for our trip.
Now to maintain energy in the field we need food and lots of it. Luckily for us, we've got our mate Rocket on the case to keep our bellies full. Let’s go catch up.
Hey! G'day, Rocket.
Oh, what do you guys want?!
Just come to get a bit of food for our field trip.
More food! They always want food! Food! Here! Here! Food! I've had enough of youse! Get your food and get out!
Now, Rocket’s always up for a chat.
But we best not waste any more time.
Now of course we don’t expect to have any injuries in the field but if we do we need the right medical equipment so we'll go and see the doctor and get a first aid kit.
Hey, hey, get out!
Back down with you. We've got to find the source of this bleeding.
Now let’s hope poor old Graham is soon on the mend.
As for us though, it’s almost time for us to be heading off.
Now one last check of the equipment but I reckon I've got just about everything I need.
Your boots! Your clothes! Your motorcycle!
