The day begins at 4.30 am. For the past 24hours tourist vessel "The Spirit of Enderby" has sat off the coast of Cape Denison, buffeted by strong winds driving down from the adjacent icy slopes. But strangely for this hour of the morning the breeze is calm. The ship has come from New Zealand, a time zone that they still adopt. So 4.30 for us is 6.30 for them. Laying in my tent, the chatter on my VHF radio beside my ear begins, they are making preparations to come ashore. Eager to meet our first visitors, our camp is roused, blurry eyed we don our layers of clothing and trek over to Mawson's Hut.
In the pursuing hours a steady stream of punters file from ship to shore. In groups of three everyone was carefully guided through the hut, emerging afterwards positively brimming with delight. To walk into Mawson's Hut for the first time is an incredible experience, like walking through a time capsule, reading the initials of each party member painted on his respective bunk, gazing upon book still resting on the shelf. The experience exemplified by the crystals of ice delicately lining each timber rafter overhead, refracting the twinkling sunlight beaming down through the skylights. The new visitors have travelled a long way and the location has not disappointed.
One member of the group grabbed our attention in particular, Emlyn Thomas has just come ashore, one of Sir Douglas Mawson's grandsons. The journey to commonwealth bay has been a long time coming for Emlyn, and everyone is keen to bend his ear about his childhood days when he lived with his grandfather. He also surprised us with some very special memorabilia, he has one of Mawson's original balaclavas, proudly, he posed in it for photographs with our team, before safely stowing it away. I noted that an hour later he had it back on, claiming that it was far warmer than the beanie had brought for general use. The balaclava bore the badge of Jaeger; a clothing firm that still sponsors the Mawson's Huts Foundation today. I could not resist getting Emlyn to sign my copy of Mawson's book Home of the Blizzard, which I have been pouring over since I arrived trying to learn as much about this place as I can.
We were invited to The Spirit of Enderby for lunch; arriving on the last boat load I walked into the dining room to see my freshly showered team mates, enjoying a catered meal. I was politely handed a cake of soap and towel and prompted towards the shower block. Surely I wasn't that smelly, it's only been a week! Now I'm looking clean faced after running the razor through its paces on two weeks of stubble, after the royal tour of the ship we retuned to our humble abode, showing obvious signs of the early start. With a last burst of energy we knock together some home made pizzas, the tent and pillow is calling, slumber will come quickly tonight.
Pete McCabe Field Leader
No comments:
Post a Comment