Sundays are the regular day off here, so it was pretty quiet around the base. Not very cold, but extremely windy. Sometimes it was hard to stay upright in the wind! I was lucky to be able to join a trip to Discovery Hut, built during Scott's first Antarctic expedition in 1902. It's only a ~10 minute walk from the station, and you can walk by it any time, but to get into it, you have be accompanied by a guide. Our "guide" knew nothing about the place, but it was still amazing to see. Some things were very well preserved, and others weren't. There was a seal carcass outside the tent that looked almost new (although frozen, of course) even though it was ~100 years old! On the other hand, there were some carcasses on the inside that definitely didn't seem fresh, and the whole place smelled like nasty fish. There were boxes of canned hot chocolate, tinned biscuits, and lots of oatmeal. Of the seal, cocoa, biscuits, and oatmeal, only the hot cocoa remains critical dietary requirement in the Antarctic. ;)
Today was the first normal work day since I arrived. The weather today has been fairly nice for walking around - just below zero, low winds, and light snowfall. Unfortunately, low visibility meant that most of the flights were cancelled today, so a number of people have been delayed in starting their field work. For me, the morning was spent primarily in training and in the afternoon, we packaged most of our equipment to be shipped to S.Pole on Wednesday. We also met with lots of people to discuss logistical issues such as off-site communication and (tentative) flight plans.
I'm now off to start packing for tomorrow's "Happy Camper" trip. This is basically survival training, followed by a night of snow camping. I'm told it's a lot of fun when the weather is nice and quite miserable when it's not. So, cross your fingers for nice weather!
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