Luscious food, extreme golf, snowboarding and a trip to Wilkins Aerodrome — all from Casey station this week.

Birthday celebrations

This Sunday we celebrated Joe’s birthday, his second one while in Antarctica. As always, Eddie our chief impressed with an amazing Saturday night pre-birthday dinner consisting of fresh made chicken liver pâté served with brioche, a caramelised onion and tomato chutney, followed by Joe’s requested main of a 500gm+ premium OP rib steak, and finishing with a light white chocolate mint mousse.

On Sunday while Eddie made Joe’s requested black forest birthday cake, Cary decided to try his hand at baking, coming up with a very unique second birthday cake (a tribute to Joe’s fascination with anything radioactive and dangerous!).

More sunlight = more outdoor activities

During the month of July, sunlight hours have doubled from just under three hours per day to six hours. Despite daytime temps of around −20°C, the weather has been reasonably good allowing many of us to get out and enjoy some outdoor recreational activities. This week, a few of us have ventured out on the Casey ski loop while others set their sights on a round of Antarctic golf, and found out that golf balls really aren't designed for use in temps of -25°C. Steve, Cary and Matt also joined in on the fun, dusting off their snowboards for a run down the wharf road.

Trip to Wilkins Aerodrome

Every few months, Steve McInnerney and Cary head up to Wilkins aerodrome to check on the buildings and equipment. On this trip, a few of us tagged along with the intention to camp out around Wilkins in tents. After a long bumpy ride we arrived at Wilkins just in time for strong winds and blowing snow to set in, with the wind chill dropping temperatures to around −50°C. Wishing to keep all our fingers and toes we opted not to pitch our tents but ‘camp’ inside the Wilkins mess building which had been sealed up for the winter. Inside, temperatures were still around −30°C but we were happy to be out of the wind.

After enjoying a three course dinner, we all settled down in the relative comfort of the lounge room, and even watched a few movies on Stu’s iPad while attempting to stay warm in two sleeping bags each.

The next morning, the winds had dropped and while breakfast was being cooked, Steve and Cary ventured out to do their building and equipment checks.

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