Badminton - Winter Style

Only in winter would a seemingly sensible badminton match turn out like this....

Tris, Matt & Lizzy ride to the Hangar in style

Tris & Pete - looking err... lovely?

Andy & Drew - Badminton Champions

Roger & Tris mincing around on bicycles

Weather Balloon

I got up early this morning (well 7:30, it's early enough) to go and observe Rob launching a weather balloon. This is done twice a week by Matt or Rob at the same time as other weather balloons are released all over the world, thus gaining beakers world-wide enourmous amounts of data about what's going on up there (the word beaker is frequently used to refer to 'scientists', presumably because we work with glass beakers full of exciting chemicals all the time and the scientist in the muppets was also called Beaker) . It was a gorgeous morning, we're still not seeing the sun above the mountains yet but we do get sunrises and sunsets which last for hours which are brilliant and truly stunning.

The huge latex balloon gets filled with helium and the instrument (which sends back information on atmospheric pressure, temperature and humidity) is attached to it. Then it is taken outside and released..... As the balloon climbs higher and higher it gets bigger and bigger -apparently it gets to the size of a double decker bus by which time the balloon is only one molecule thick, it then bursts - that would be amazing to see but sadly it's about 30km up by then.

An Unusual Visitor

Today was a very special day - Richard had popped down to the Bonner Lab to do a bit of electrical work.... 'there's a strange-looking penguin on the runway' he said (knowing very well what it was) I went to the window to have a look and saw an Emperor penguin :) These are the largest of the penguins reaching over a metre tall. The nearest colony is some 13km away and they rarely visit Rothera, though most years there will be one or two who get lost and turn up here. Needless to say minutes after the radio call went out to announce its presence the whole base was out with cameras and huge grins.

Beach Party

What with it being winter and there being no sun Lizzie decided that it was the perfect time to have a beach-themed party. It was an excellent idea - it gave us all the chance to air our shorts and t-shirts and Jim the perfect excuse to create some great cocktails.

Sun

The route we attempted on Middle Stork

Lizzy and I went for a climb on Middle Stork today, unfortuantely we had to cut it short as the snow / ice was making very unusual sounds which we weren't completely happy with! Just as we got back to the skiddos we noticed that Vals (our local skiing area) was looking very unusal and realised that it was because the SUN was shining on it. We've not seen the sun for 2 months now as it has not been high enough in the sky to peek over the mountains. So we jumped onto the skidoo and made it over to Vals just in time to experience the sun on our faces and be re-united with our shadows! Sadly it was sort lived, lasting only a few minutes but it'll be back again tomorrow :)

Making the briefest of appearances above Stork Ridge

Reptile Ridge in sunlight

Nacreous Clouds

Nacreous clouds (sometimes called mother of pearl clouds) form high up in the atmosphere (at altitudes of 15,000-25,000 metres). Due to their high altitude they recieve sunlight from below the horizon causing them to shine brightly before dawn or after dusk. Displays like this aren't common but are seen occasionally throughout winter.

These photos were taken around 10am, it's great being able to see such fantastic sunrises and cloud displays without having to get up at an unsociable hour!

Live Earth Antarctica

Back in April the Rothera wintering band (Nunatak) were asked if we'd like to preform for the Live Earth concerts. Apparently we weren't their 1st choice (really?!) but the organisers hadn't realised that it's pretty much impossible to get people into Antarctica during winter. So, after months of practise and what seemed like endless interviews we finally recorded our 2 songs and on 7th July 'played' to our biggest audience so far, 2million, which was quite a jump from 50 people in the sledge store!

Unfortunately there's a lack of roadies down here so we had to set up our own kit

Filming

If anyone wants to hear what we sounded like just search for 'nunatak' on www.youtube.com

Following the success of our 'world-wide tour' we recieved a total of 6 e-mails from avid fans, had a Nunatak facebook site created in our honour and politely turned down 3 recording offers - ahh the pain of fame. Back to our day jobs it is then ...