A flea in a bottle. Thats one to describe how it feels to be here.The immensity of scale is hard to percieve.
I had an 'A' factor day yesterday , its our 3rd weekend of blizzards. Certain operational tasks have to be carried out regardless of the weather which involves pitting oneself against Mother Nature. Unfortunatly the views looked nothing like this photo!! and Mother Nature won again. So heres a shot of mother nature in all her icy glory. The 4 smudges are honda quads , just to get an idea of scale. 

Blizz day. This morning the wind picked up to 175kmh or 109mph , along with blowing snow, basicly zero Visability. It was too dangerous to head down to the workshops , so a day off was called. Unfortunalty power station observations still have to be done , and its my week on Ob's so it was into the white blur!! Plus its also my two days in the kitchen helping the chef , so everyone had the day off but me !! :-) Robbie our chef wandered into the kitchen at about 2pm!! He's of the opinion that if everone else is having a cruisy day , he will as well.

This is a shot of our cold porch. It basicly an air lock , to keep the cold out. As you can see , a bit of cold has penertrated the seals on the doors.
 

The ice bergs frozen in time. These bergs have become entrapped in the sea ice. The 4x4 quad gives an idea of the size of this blue wonder. 

Cocktail and Karaoke night. Paul and I did a Madness song.After that most of us got up at one stage or another and sung a song or two. Radom song choice was entertaining at the end of the evening !! Thank Faaarrk for cocktails!!!

Blizzard snow gets everywhere. The snow is so fine that it penertrates the smallest gaps and builds up to a point where it can fill an entire container. I needed some gear out of this container and in a true Antarctic fashion , a 2 minute job became a hour. We call this the "A"factor. Its applicable to almost everything down here. Its not a bad thing , but think how long it would take in time to do a task normally , and at least triple the time.  

More reflections .This time from the waste treatment plant , a view of Reeves hill. 

The Chefs shopping ute had suffered a heater failure , so I gave him a driving lesson in the Mack . Spot the happy chef , got to play in a big toy!!!
 

Somewhere under here is an engine ... After a hour of digging , I finally had the fan free of ice and snow .
Then it was a mission to fill the air tanks with compressed air for brakes and starting.
This truck never travels more than 3 km at a stretch !! but they still need the oil changing every year along with all filters and a good grease. The machines are not garaged , so are exposed to the elements every day of the year. 

Walking the tide crack. even though the ice is almost a meter thick , it is still a dynamic enitiy. As the tides rise and fall , cracks such as these appear. Most can be safely negotiated is good surface difinition. 

Pete and I on the summit of Motherway . A stunning day , complete with even more stunning panaromas. does it get any better??? 

A Winter Weddel seal. While heading between Motherway and Ford Islands we came across a couple of seals , that had popped up though a tide crack. The seals at this time of year ar few and far between. When the sea ice get blown out , they tend to appear , and just as quickly vanish again. 

The Browning Peninsula hut.
We arrived only to find that the skylight had blown away in the last Blizz.

Shadow climbers...
This is Motherway Island. Its a small peak a few of us wanted to climb , so the the great sea ice conditions , we shot down on Quads to Browning , and had a great day to climb.
In the distance , the Vanderford Glacier.

A trip to the Skiway proved a little windy!! Its been blowing about 50-60 knots on station and at this spot 10 km away from station it was blowing at least 80 knots. I could hadly walk and the wind kept me in this posistion until I moved an arm , and ended up sliding along the hard packed snow !! This landing area is for the small Casa's that the Division have. We do a bi-monthly trip here to remove accumulated snow , hence the Challenger towing a drag beam.
This Skiway is graded snow and the planes land here on skis ,as apposed to Wilkins Runway [70km away], where the planes will land on Glacial ice , or compressed snow.
 

The Doctor of brewology is in the house .... A black and tan baby comming on along nicely .......... 

This is as high as the sun gets , it stays for a few hours , then vanishes again. Our days will get longer and longer now , untill we again, have 24 hours of light. 

The snow flake on the pack