Antarctic video gallery
Antarctic 48 hour film festival: Trusty Rusty
Video transcript
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!
[end transcript]
Midwinter madness at Casey research station
Video transcript
Jason Beachcroft: Stupidity! Oi…it’s cold!
Rebecca Jeffcoat: I’m Rebecca Jeffcoat, the station leader of Casey research station, Antarctica. As you can see behind me we're getting ready for our midwinter swim in celebration of the winter solstice. Midwinter is really important to us here in Antarctica because it means the return of the sun. For our midwinter celebration today we'll be having our swim and then a very important exchange of midwinter gifts that we've been making over the last few months and then a great feast and some entertainment this evening.
Dominic Hall: How you feeling, Scotty?
Scot Beardsley: Cool!
Dominic Hall: Words for back home, Scotty?
Scott Thurn: Can’t talk…
[end transcript]
Deep field ice core provides snapshot of Antarctic climate history
Video transcript
Mount Brown South Field Leader, Sharon Labudda
Hi my name’s Sharon Labudda and I am the Field Leader for the Mount Brown South camp, this year in 2017–18 season.
Mount Brown South Chief Investigator, Dr Tessa Vance
And my name’s Dr. Tessa Vance and I’m the Chief Investigator for the Mount Brown South camp. We're drilling an ice core to 350 metres this year, which should give us a 1200 year climate history of the Indian Ocean.
Mount Brown South Field Leader, Sharon Labudda
My job is pretty much to look after everyone, keep everyone safe, make sure we get planes in and out, we get all the gear home, get the ice cores home safely. And yeah pretty much just look after everyone.
Mount Brown South Chief Investigator, Dr Tessa Vance
And my job to make sure that we achieve the science objectives for the
project, which is to get the ice core back home and analysed and make some cool science out of it. And also to hopefully keep some of the scientists in line, so Sharon doesn’t have too hard a job.
Mount Brown South Field Leader, Dr Sharon Labudda
That’d be great (laughs).
[end transcript]
Anzac Day Casey research station 2018
Video transcript
Casey Station Leader — Commander Rebecca Jeffcoat
On the 25th of April Australians and New Zealanders mark Anzac Day the anniversary of the 1915 landing of British-led troops at Gallipoli.
It’s very special to me to be commemorating Anzac Day in Antarctica.
There’s a great tradition of Antarctic explorers who have served in Defence Forces in times of conflict including Mawson and Wilkins and Hurley, and we'll remember those men today.
And in turn the qualities of Anzacs who served and who we remember today such as teamwork and mateship, courage, self-sacrifice and self-discipline.
They are all qualities that I see in the expeditioners who are with me in Antarctica at the moment and it’s a great honour to be spending Anzac Day with those Australians and New Zealanders so far from home.
[end transcript]
Noisy sperm whales forage to the beat
Video transcript
BRIAN MILLER (Whale Acoustician): We've just conducted the first long-term study of sperm whales in the Antarctic. We've used acoustic listening devices to monitor for their distinctive clicks.
Sperm whales are incredibly vocal animals. They make sounds 80% of the time that they're underwater and they make these echolocation clicks typically once per second.
Sperm whales really aren’t so much singers as they are the rhythm section. I’m always very excited to have a look and listen to the data that come back each year and there’s always a possibility of hearing something that’s never been heard before.
MARK MILNES (Electronics Design Engineer): So we've developed a long-term acoustic recorder that gets deployed on the sea floor and basically listens to the sounds of the ocean for 12 to 15 months at a time.
It’s two-and-a-half meters high, it’s got a hydrophone on the top that detects the ocean noise, it’s made up of three flotation spheres so we can get it back quickly, and the bottom sphere has got all the electronics in there including the SD cards where all the data gets stored.
[end transcript]