Travellin’ South

The beginning of the end..!

Well, the end of the season is truly upon us here at Rothera. This week has seen the final departures of our aircraft and only 45 people remain on base until the ship comes in around the end of the month to take 23 of us home and leave the 2010 winter team behind…

The weather has certainly taken on a wintry edge to it over the last couple of weeks – enough to see our last two Twin Otters depart under cover of darkness on Tuesday night to get out in between two weather systems and that presented a nice opportunity for some photos of the runway lights deployed. Given that our aviation takes place in the summer season of the land of the midnight sun and all that it’s a rare sight to see the runway lights on around here!

Activity on base is now focused on the impending arrival of the RRS Ernest Shackleton, the station’s “last call” before winter (although not strictly true this year – the US icebreaker Nathaniel B. Palmer is going to call in April to pick up the gear left behind from the NSF Larissa project). Much packing of cargo is afoot and that includes the outgoing winterers packing up their personal effects for shipping home. On almost every level that’s quite a scary process, almost as much as it was 18 months ago on the way down!