Winterer's Antarctic Field Trip - Part 2

We spent the next two days in the tent. Poor contrast kept us static at camp. I wiled away the hours catching up on the blog and honing the text. I enjoy writing. I enjoy trying to make sense of things with words and I enjoy trying to make the words make sense. The summer season was full on. After Relief I was so tired and I don't think I had really recovered from that. I seemed to enter a work, sleep, work, sleep routine. The blog fell by the wayside as did my other side projects like learning computery stuff like UNIX and UNIX scripting and mastering the basic card slights. Now that the 'quieter' winter season has arrived I can now afford more time to those other things…..well I hope that is the case.

Being tent bound also gave me the opportunity to talk to my friends / colleagues. It was interesting to hear about James's other interests like diving and kayaking (paddling as it's generally referred to) and Ian's many adventures out and about in the wildernesses of the world.


I also got tucked in to a bit of reading. I don't usually read books. I read loads of text on the computer screen but to sit down with a book is unheard of. Richard left me 'Carrying the Fire' to read. Michael Collins' book ticks many boxes for me; it's an autobiography (I love learning about interesting people), it's about an astronaut and it's written in a very honest, almost self depreciating tone. I have alway been amazed and struck by mankind's endeavours into space since I was a little boy. Anything to do with space really. My mum brought me up on Star Trek, Doctor Who and Blake's 7. I remember her taking my brother, Ian and I to see Star Wars in 77/78 and whilst I was drilled into the back of my seat as only a wee boy could be by that spectacle of a movie my Mum was actually teetering on the very edge of hers. Mum sure does enjoy a bit of sci-fi and it has definitely rubbed off (03/04/2011 Happy Mothers Day mum and thank you for being such a great mum).

Anyway, there's nothing fictitious about Michael Collins story. It's all fact and the autobiography details how he ended up becoming the command module pilot for the Apollo 11 moon landing as well as detailing his journey to and from the moon and his travels in life after his lunar adventure. His words offer a real human insight in to that amazing journey of exploration and the innovative engineering that made it happen. His autobiography is recognised as being one of the best in it's genre as Michael manages to accurately document the life of an American Astronaut as it actually would have been during this exciting period of manned space exploration. I'll keep turning those pages because, as it stands, there's nothing else to do apart from melt snow which is in itself a very very important task. Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink (unless you melt it)

By the evening of the fourth day the clouds eventually broke and with good contrast we grabbed the bull by the horns and headed off to do some exploring. Off to Aladdin's cave we went. After a quick abseil down into a crevasse and an ice scramble up the other side we found ourselves in this well known and very well explored little cave.

Inside Aladdin's Cave (Photo: James Goby)

Once done we climbed down from the cave then up out of the crevasse and managed to back to the tent for some tea and biscuits brown just before bed time.

James making his way down from Aladdin's cave into the crevasse

The next day we broke camp and before heading back to Halley V we went on a reconnaissance mission to survey the lay of the land during which Ian undertook some 'safe route' flagging. We arrived back home safe and well later that evening. It was a cold trip back. It was the first time that I really felt the Antarctic winter beginning to take hold. The temperature was definitely beginning to drop.

The weather changes for the better the evening before we have to go home. I thought this only happened to people holidaying in Scotland (Photo: James Goby)

I must thank Ian for keeping us safe and both Ian and James for being such cracking company on our predominantly tent bound adventure. I hope we have better luck with the weather on our next trip this October.

Outside Aladin's Cave. Ian looks over the Hinge Zone