Last week we celebrated National Reconciliation Week on station flying the Aboriginal and Torres Straight Island flags. On Wednesday night we screened a selection of aboriginal short films in our cinema, ‘The Odeon'.
The flags were dropped just in time when a blizzard arrived promptly in the middle of smoko on Friday morning. Winds gusting out at 91 knots left us with with a collection of blizz tails all around station on Saturday morning. So the weekend kicked off with snow clearing! It was most hands on deck until smoko, checking infrastructure, digging out doorways and clearing snow in a variety of machines.
Matty and chef Andrew ventured out to drill the sea ice at O’Brien Bay after smoko, and then collected a few more people and set out to spend the night at Wilkes Hut, preparing the hut standard — wood fired pizza.
A team of helpers continued work on the mysterious white monolith growing on the heli pad outside of the red shed.
Early this week Misty, Zac, Matty and I traveled out to Browning Peninsula to measure the sea ice depth in anticipation of commencing work on the Peterson Melon Replacement Project.
While Zac and Matty drilled the sea ice along our intended access route out to the island, Misty and I drilled our way across the channel and then hiked over land to the site of the old melon hut which was destroyed in a blizzard some years ago. Impressively, despite the winds that lash the island, the stockpile of materials of the old hut waiting to be recovered is in good condition. The island is deserted in winter but there is plenty of evidence of the extent of seal and penguin colonies that form here over summer, to be seen and smelt!
Back on station planning for our upcoming mid-winter celebrations is continuing with most expeditioners busy rehearsing entertainment, or busily crafting secret mid-winters gifts.
Jacque Comery, SL
