Christmas and New Years

Christmas started off on Christmas eve as it does, with a fairly rowdy night at the bar. After a few merry G&T's it was soon Christmas morning, where we had a nice cooked breakfast at 10am in the Wallow (hang out area) followed by a visit by Santa in a red hagglund. Chris Kringle was a great treat, everyone got a present from someone (unknown) on station, including the 6 Russian geologists that had come for the day (from a nearby hut) to drink our bar dry and partake in the festivities. Some folk went to great lengths to make great presents and its amazing what some people got from the tradies... (personalised bottle openers, picture frames, engraved mugs, just to name a few).


Christmas eve ar bar Ninas

Christmas breakfast was, of course, followed by Christmas lunch (2pm) which was a mountain of lobsters, oysters, turkeys, mussels, etc etc, a selection of 5 different desserts and of course station wine. Most folk went to bed early due to the previous nights partying (except the Russians who carried on till dawn)...


Santa arriving by red fire truck hagg with his little helpers


Santa handing out Chris Kringle




Christmas lunch


The gap between Christmas and new years was filled with a little work and a little play, a short walk to the old wallow provided a few wildlife highlights on a nice sunny day...


Elephant seal, actually awake (for once)


3 little birds...


Looking out from the old wallow...



Emperor chook maulting on the way back from the Old Wallow...


New years was a 'Hollywood' theme and there were some great costumes, everyone getting really into the dress ups and having an absolute ball...


Mads, our station doctor raisng the bar in the costume stakes...


Yours truly as Hugh Heff, the Oscar, and Bianca on the side...


Dont ask, there were some weird ones...


After new years i went on an overnight walk with a few friends to Watts hut, about 4 hours walking over the Vestfolds and about the same return via the fjord. The sea ice had since been closed so we were lucky to be one of the last to travel on it. The sea ice n the fjords is basically the last to break out, i cant wait till it does so we can get in and see what sort of things are living down there.

Since new years, its been a bit of work in the lab, and a bit of work out in the Zodiacs (yes we do actually do work). On Wednesday we had a great afternoon out on the water, we took a trip down almost to the Sorsdal glacier where we had to change over some batteries on a camera that's based permanently down there to capture movements of ice bergs. The camera was based on top of a small island that was covered in a Adelie penguin rookery...complete with little black baby fluff balls... I thought i'd spare you the penguin photos this time, i'm sure you've seen enough.

Glenn doing his driving thing on the zodiac...


The view from the top of island where the camera set up was...

This week we are looking forward to the arrival of voyage 2 and a changeover of some personnel and the arrival of others. Its sure to be the catalyst for another great meeting at Ninas, especially with the arrival of a few close friends and work mates. Later on in the week, we should get back to a bit of snorkeling and hopefully a few day out sampling on the water.

'till then.