A busy week of work, rest and play at Casey.

They try hard

This week at Casey the project team have been hard at it and progressing well with the CUB (Casey Utility Building). Despite many interruptions, like defeating Macquarie Island, Mawson and Davis in the interstation darts competition, the team has come a long way since the start of construction, and the fit-out of the CUB is really starting to take shape.

Expeditioner having some fun pretending to have his tongue stuck the steel frame on the external door.
Expeditioner having some fun pretending to weld two pieces of wood together.
Expeditioner having fun pretending to cut a metal wall frame section with a battery operated wood saw.
Expeditioner having fun pretending to use a battery operated angle grinder in an electrical switch board.
Expeditioner having fun pretending to cut metal copper pipes with a wood panel saw.

Rest and play

Over the last few weeks we have been very lucky, with some great weather and more sunshine everyday, which has made it possible for groups to get out and enjoy the scenery Casey has to offer. Several quad bike and ski trips have been venturing out onto the sea ice to make the most of it and check out some of the spectacular ice cliffs.

Five quad bikes some distance away returning from a ride on the sea ice coming towards the photographer with land in the background.
Four expeditioners in the foreground on cross country skis hauling sleds traversing away from the camera with land off in the distance.

The great debate

With a strong Queensland dominance on station and another great victory in the State of Origin series, a debate was decided to be held. The topic was given to the teams the day before which was, “I would rather live in Antarctica than in Queensland.”

The timing and support from the fellow Queenslanders could not be any better. To top it off, the anchor man, Adam from North Queensland himself, had some solid facts and figures to prove that Queensland is the preferred place to live. One of these was “Queensland has 500 days of sunshine in a year.” This obviously won the crowd over with a strong cheer to take out the debate, the winners being the negative side, Adam, Tom and Kiwi. Bad luck to Rachel, Nate and Andy.

The debate teams sitting at the tables with the audience sitting in two rows in front of them.

Walk to the South Pole and Darts

We have now finished the first round of the interstation darts competition, having all played each other once. After the first round being a white wash by Casey station, the competition has proven to be slightly weaker than expected with two blizz runs dealt out to the opposition. A blizz run is when the game of Shanghai is completed without one team scoring any points. So in other words, a thrashing.

At Casey we have so many keen darts players that we have had to conduct trials to make the team. These were very hotly contested and we have many reserves ready to go if someone does not perform or they pick up an injury from our excessive training regime.

This month a lot of us have been participating in the Walk to the South Pole challenge. To be part of this we have to complete a minimum of eight kilometres a day for the month of July. So far we have been all doing great and going above and beyond the minimum distance. This has turned the exercise room into a can of sardines with everyone trying to get on a machine after work so they get their kilometres up. Despite that, it has encouraged a lot of us to keep active and healthy, which keeps our doctor happy as well as going towards a good cause.

Murray throwing a dart at the laminated dart board with the dart in mid-flight.
Four expeditioners exercising, one each on the cross trainer, rowing machine, treadmill and exercise bike with Jeff walking in with a coffee to see what is going on.
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