Saturday 29 October 2011

Abuzz

Well, it had to happen.
The summer campaign shenanigans have started, even before our
winterover is over!

Today we got the message that there is an Australian plane over at the
South Pole ? the US Amundsen-Scott base ? wanting to get to Casey
base, and they will need a refuelling stop. On Monday. Maybe. Or maybe
not. Maybe later in the week. Maybe. (laughs - it's all too familiar
now)

Yep, it?s us. We thought we had another week to steadily do all the
work to get the airstrip and fuelling station ready. It turns out
that in fact we?ve got today and Sunday.

So Fred and Alessandro spent most of the day dragging out and speedily
overhauling the fuel pump, to finish putting the refuelling station
together, while I got a crew together and we hauled up to the airstrip
and spent the whole afternoon digging out the runway markers from the
snowdrifts they inevitably catch through the winter. Helpfully, the
Kassborer decided today would be the day to develop a fault and David
and Vivien spent the day fixing it. Which thankfully they did, so
tomorrow they can flatten the airstrip.

We?re all really quite wrecked, but we?re all set. And looking forward
to maybe our first visitors for a while, now. There had better be
some fresh tomatoes on that plane. They owe us...


--
Concordia station 75°06'06''S - 123°23'43''E
Local time UTC + 8


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