Another holiday, another few days spent in a hut in pretty
bad weather, more of me moaning about the lack of flushing toilet, shower, deep
pile carpets and room service. Actually,
I probably don't moan about the lack of room service as this usually is
available, if only as a means to shut me up.
Ella does make good tea.
This trip was a little different from previous ones though as we were
joined by Jo (one of the Government Officers) who is far less inclined to eat
ration packs than Ella and I. The plan
had been to get dropped off by boat at Harpon Hut, spend a few days there and
then walk or ski back. After our last
little adventure to see the penguins Ella and I were quite keen to keep both
walking and navigational requirements to a minimum on this trip. Unfortunately, the wind picked up on the day
we were due to leave so boating was no longer an option and recent snowfall
would have made the trip on foot quite challenging/unpleasant depending how you
look at these things. One of the local
fishing vessels then called in to say they had a patient for me so the morning
was spent doing a bit of doctoring. This
rather unusual activity ensured there was no longer time to make it to Harpon
on foot and the decision was made (and I had been so looking forward to swimming
through waist deep snow whilst carrying a massive rucksack). Not to be put off holiday plans entirely, we
decided to go to Maiviken hut for a couple of days instead - less than a 30
minute run from base in the summer, but a good
2 hr trudge in current conditions.
The advantage of this hut is that there are sleeping bags stored there
and, as it is so close to base, we were not required to carry a tent. Light and fast travel you might think; but
no, this was not to be the case. All
weight and volume lost by taking out the camping kit was soon replaced by pate,
chorizo, dried onions/mushrooms/mince, wine, cream (yes really), gin, bacon, tortilla
wraps and some crosswords.
The walk over was far less unpleasant than expected - windy,
but with a bit of sun and no horrendously deep patches of snow to battle
with. Snowshoes really are one of my
favourite things now. Friday was Jo's
birthday so, after arriving at the hut and dumping bags, it was time to dig a
snow seat and celebrate with gin and tonics in the evening sun. Jo then cooked us all a delicious birthday
meal, having sensibly decided that Ella and I were not to be trusted with the
preparation of anything other than boiling water. After hearing the weather forecast for the
next couple of days we reassessed our supplies and realised we had grossly
underestimated the quantity of gin that we would require. A state of emergency was declared and
resupply from base requested during the next radio sched. We were admittedly quite surprised to
discover our request was to be granted, and Saturday saw the arrival of Rod and
Nik with a nalgene of gin, some tonic and a packet of Maryland cookies. They were rewarded for their efforts with tea and oatcakes, which was maybe not the
fairest of swaps.
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| Gin and tonics in the snow |
A short walk down to sealer's cave followed, and a very
pleasant afternoon was spent drinking tea (after a short walk back up to the hut
to collect fuel for the stove), eating chocolate and lying in the sun looking
out to sea, while being sheltered nicely from the wind by the cave walls.
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| Spindrift is exceedingly beautiful, yet unfortunately also very annoying and unpleasant when it's blown into your face at high speed |
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| Tea time at the cave |
We were very lucky to have clear starry nights for the whole
trip making night time wanderings a cold, but definitely not unpleasant
experience. A torch was rarely required
as the moon illuminated the twinkling snow beautifully and, as always on these
trips, I was reminded how lucky I am to be here.
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| Maiviken Hut in the moonlight |
A certain level of commitment was required to vacate the hut
on the Sunday as the wind was whistling through the vent in a most determined
manner. However, we had completed as
much of the day's crossword as we could and were feeling relatively hardened by
the bacon rolls we had just consumed for breakfast. We set off up a nearby hill having decided that a
high level walk would clearly be the best option for an extremely windy
day. The sun was occasionally glimpsed
through the clouds, though only when its appearance didn't coincide with a gust
of wind that blew icy spindrift into our faces and forced us to look only at
our feet. Eventually we arrived at our
(admittedly quite arbitrary) goal, by which time the gusts were up to about 50 knots. Ella and Jo were knocked to the ground by a particularly vicious one,
and the fact I wasn't is probably an indication that I really do need to start
eating less! It was universally decided
that this was not the best spot for lunch so we headed back down for tea,
oatcakes and more chocolate. And maybe a
glass of wine and a little bit of gin just to build up our strength for the
journey home.
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| The picture in no way captures the conditions at this point! |
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| A lot of whiteness and not a lot of people |
Monday was to be the last day of the holiday and we could no
longer put off the task we had been given by one of the base scientists. Unfortunately he was unable to complete it
himself being currently stuck on a fishing vessel with a lots of Russian and
Norwegian sailors somewhere in the vague vicinity of South Georgia. This meant we were saddled with the enviable
role of surrogate fur seal poo collectors.
My delight in being given this role was limited to say the least, and
was reduced further when we realised the sample bags we had been given were not
the sealable kind. Jo was even less keen
than Ella and I, so the task of chipping frozen poo from the snow (nope, I'm not
kidding) was left to us. Jo mainly attempted
(not entirely unsuccessfully) to make friends with one of the large male fur
seals that we met down at the beach.
Eventually 10 samples were collected (though the chance of them all
being from the required species of seal is minimal to none I would say) and it
was time to head back to base carrying our precious load.
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| Who know whether we collected elephant seal or fur seal poo - it was fairly unpleasant either way |
One day Ella and I will get nice weather for our holidays;
just maybe not while we're still living in South Georgia.
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| Ok, so it wasn't all bad this time! |
