This is the final edition from the 66th ANARE Macca crew of 2013/14. Clive updates on a story from the 7th of March: “Mysterious Macca man made trench”. We have an intriguing story from the albatross detective. There is also a gallery of the 16 finest pics from the 2013/14 season.

Macca mystery trench near Scoble Lake – SOLVED!

This is a follow-up on a story from 7 March 2014, Mysterious Macca man-made trench near Scoble Lake. The mystery is now solved.

Seismic station on the plateau

Bill de la Mare at the Australian Antarctic Division sent in some fascinating historic information:

“The trench housed a seismometer that was connected to the geo hut in camp by a multicore cable. The instruments were in a box sunk into the ground until it was sitting on bedrock. The seismometer was for the Bureau of Mineral Resources (or as they were popularly known “miserable racehorses”), now Geosciences Australia. There was also a seismometer in a hut near the station about 15 metres above the station on the track up North Head. However this instrument registered too much wave noise, and hence the one on the plateau. A big question at the time, apart from the seismic activity of the island, was detecting nuclear tests.

Interestingly, the cable was continually chewed on by rabbits and we ended up stringing it off the ground on star-pickets, one of which seems to still be there. The instrument went in about 1970–71 and we were stringing the cable in 1971–72 when I was there. I don’t know when it was taken out.

The panel in the photo is the lid of the box. The ‘geo’ who did most of the hard work with the cable was Maurice McMullan, I think the instruments were installed by John Major, probably in the summer ‘70–71. Even though he was scheduled to RTA (return to Australia) after the summer, John stayed on that winter to keep the Upper Atmosphere Physics program running after the tragic death of Brenton Sellick, who fell while climbing on Tottan Head, just near the station.”

Bauer Bay hut telephone cable

Rodney Champness, radio supervisor in 1967, commented on the article alluding to the mention of the old telephone line to Bauer Bay Hut:

 “I was at Macca in 1967. An expeditioner, probably the radio supervisor, laid Don 5 telephone cable (ex WWII) from the base to Bauer Bay. The colour of the wires were one green and one black. His intention was to provide automatic telephone comms from Bauer to the main station by the automatic telephone system at the base. However, the insulation was perished and the phone didn’t work despite all his work. I doubt that it was done in 1966 maybe 1964 or ‘65. Hope this of help.”

Thanks to both Bill and Rodney — great to have these mysteries solved.

Clive Strauss

The Notebook (based on a true story)

You may have read the romantic novel or even seen the box office hit movie, The Notebook. But it’s safe to say the subantarctic version is much better.

It all began late one Wednesday night. After a long day walking along the coast I was reclining at the Green Gorge desk, knocking back a hot double strength BCJ (blackcurrant juice), mulling over the day’s data collection and listening to the hustle and bustle of the king penguin traffic outside, when in burst my albatross associate. The door slammed in the wind — she was obviously distraught. I swung my feet off the desk and attempted to console her. In between cries she declared her little red notebook had vanished. The severity of the situation slowly became apparent as she described the confidential information contained within: the names, addresses and total krill assets of each black-browed, grey-headed and light-mantled albatross on Macquarie Island, which in the beak of a villainous skua could have a dire result.

What my partner didn’t know was that in a former life, before becoming a Macquarie Island albatross researcher, I spent my days making a dime as a private-eye. My experience told me a case like this doesn’t come around often and seeing an opportunity to re-launch my detective career, I promptly declared the Green Gorge Private-Eye Service open for business.

After a minute or two with the distressed victim, it became apparent that this wasn’t a job for one. I poured a triple strength BCJ and prepared for a long night. With my Macquarie connections I knew the perfect spies for this needle in a haystack job. I called up Karen ‘Super Sleuth’ Andrew for all my evidence collection and analysis, Nick ‘The Grip’ McCabe as a heavy, in case any extra muscle was required, and most importantly Laura ‘The Nurse’ Williams to manage the anxious owner of the notebook.

Our first task that night was to collect as many clues as possible, here is what we extracted from the victim:

  • She departed Waterfall Bay Hut at 0900 with an extremely full and heavy pack containing all albatross samples and banding equipment for the season. For easy access, the notebook was strapped to the outside of the pack;
  • Our assignment for the day was to visit photo monitoring waypoints along the coast and photograph the escarpment for measuring vegetation changes;
  • She was carrying a GPS that tracked her movements along beaches, through thick tussock and around deep and dark seal wallows.

We scrounged up as much evidence as we could to narrow down the search area. I grabbed my camera and reviewed my photo waypoints for the day as we had been working together. Upon zooming in on my first photo, I could see my ‘Alby’ colleague accidentally passing through the shot I had taken of the escarpment — with her notebook attached to the right side of her pack! Excitement building I scanned through the next few shots — nothing. We had narrowed our search area down by two kilometres, but we still had six kilometres to search. Looking at the second last picture my heart began to race again. This time I had caught our target with the notebook missing from her right side! This reduced our search area another two kilometres.

While I flicked through all the photos of the day our Super Sleuth downloaded the GPS track and then uploaded it back onto all of our GPS devices. We could now retrace her steps!

The Grip played his part by swaying a divining crystal over the Macquarie Island 1 to 50 kilometre scaled map, testing a few divining rods and reciting a few prayers to St. Anthony, the Patron Saint for lost articles. While the evidence these methods provided proved inconclusive, The Grip found plenty of untapped water resources around the hut.

That night a storm hit, heavy rain and 40 knot northerly winds beat down on our cosy hut. Our thoughts were with the notebook, out there in the wilderness alone. Would it be alright? Would it survive the night? Or would the high tide, wind or rain claim it?

The next day we arose early to sunshine and prepared the sniffer dogs — Finn and Wags — contracted for the task. They were shown a duplicate notebook, given a few albatross smelling items to scent and then the team headed up the jump up. We scoured the GPS route our ‘Alby girl’ had walked the previous day with a metre gap between us to ensure nothing was missed. With a strong northerly blowing we checked under each tussock along our path. Spirits began to drop two hours into our search when we reached wallow country. No one spoke of it, but the possibility that the notebook was lying at the bottom of one of these muddy pools was very real. It became clear that the stress of the job was getting to one of our team — Finn, driven to madness by the pressure, began rolling in fur seal poo.

Amongst the tussock and wallows we stood, a team exhausted and downhearted, just looking at each other. I knew as the sun passed overhead and began to drop, so would our optimism. I rallied the group. It was well past lunchtime and we hadn’t eaten. I suggested we carry on 50 metres to the beach stop for lunch, regroup and replenish energy stores before continuing our search.

I led the team through the tussock, around a rockstack, over a wallow and down onto the beach, heads low behind me. I look up at the rugged subantarctic windswept beach in front of me. My eyes diverted to the ground as I glimpsed red. I could not believe my eyes! I ran the last 20 m to the rocky shore and grabbed the bright red little notebook lying on the ground and held it above my head! It had survived with all data intact! Emotions were high as the notebook and its owner were reunited once again. The walk back to the hut flew as the team chatted excitedly about the lucky find. We got back to the hut, tired but ecstatic, and celebrated with a hot BCJ. I reclined back on the couch feeling satisfied that the first and probably most difficult case for the Green Gorge Private-Eye Service had been solved.

Signing off,

The Albatross Detective

Jaimie and Kate

Macca gallery special

This is possibly the last Macca gallery from the Macca crew of the 66th ANARE. Next week we may be extremely busy with the station re-supply and handover to the crew of the 67th ANARE.

The photos below represent a selection that were chosen of the many entries that came in for the cover photos for our yearbook. These were printed out in A3 size photo paper and displayed to all station personnel, who were each given one vote.

They are all special photos and the vote was very close for the front and back cover of the yearbook. What do you think?

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