Dumont d'Urville

As it's summer time, the base is full of people. This means the people going on the campaign (us) will be sleeping on the boat, only going ashore for lunch and dinner. This also means the cook on the base has to cater for almost 80 people. I have chosen this to excuse his deplorable cooking skills, although I am afraid he will cook no better for the 25 staying here this winter. This was a bit of a sore point, as the cook on the Astrolabe was absolutely fabulous.

However, the 'full of people' is almost entirely restricted to meal times, as, from outside, the base looks like it has recently been abandonned and recolonized by penguins. In my foolish, uninformed way, I had been afraid of not seeing any penguins. This proved to be rather a minor concern on the island. It is almost entirely covered in penguins. But these beasts are so quaint they will have a rightful post all to themselves.

The base is composed of a scatter of blue, yellow and orange buildings on the top of the island. These are connected by metal walkways, from about 50cm to a dozen meters off the ground. These walkways are not the flattest in the world, but they do have rough surfaces, as well as a strong handrail, which comes in mighty handy when the wind comes up.

Not having anything much to do untill the boat was unloaded and our containers found, we spent our time wandering around the base. It is amazing how ice, snow and rocks can form such diverse patterns!

The plain where the 'March of the Penguins' was filmed.

Most people work indoors (understandably), but you can often see the orange coats of the 'bird' people, or the orange of the zodiac, off getting samples.

And of course the helicopter and the dockers working full shifts in order to unload the boat as fast as possible. However fast they tried, it wasn't fast enough, and we had to wait out a first spell of bad weather at the base, before starting on the campaign.

Heading south!

The Astrolabe!

A 65m long icebreaker, in lively red and blue, docked at the end of the Hobart port. Leaving for the 3rd rotation this year, the ship is full of food and scientific material bound for both Dumont d'Urville and the inland stations of Concordia and Dome C. And we are also up to full passenger capacity, with scientists comming for the cruise I will be on, scientific missions in Dumont d'Urville, and people who will be spending the winter in the different bases around this side of Antarctica. Mainly french, there are also a few italians on board, heading for the italian Mario Zucchelli station. The crew are an interesting mix of french, ukrainians and indonesians.

Known as a ship that 'rolls', it's with a bit of anxiety that we all set out towards Antarctica. This anxiety was quickly put off to later, as we learned it would take nearly all day to get out of the estuary South of Hobart... So we spent the time enjoying the view, and encouraging the last of the Sydney-Hobart yachts that were just comming into Hobart as we left.

The next few days were spent in bed, 'getting used to the movement' as it were. On the 31st of December, the weather changed to a calm, clear and sunny, a weather forecast we were to have for most of the trip. The New Year was celebrated, twice, due to the date line crossing, and the first iceberg was greeted at 53° South with great photographic exhuberance.

We spent the next day looking for more, but then had to retire to the cabins as we crossed the Polar Front at 65° South. The boat acquired a movement which was .... You know the boats they have in attraction parks, that swing and make you feel weightless at both ends? Well you take that movement, and then add the rolling of the boat perpendicular to that. You end up with a movement that doesn't really give you sea sickness, but certainly makes you think twice about attempting to walk down the corridors, as you already need all the concentration you can muster to just stop from flying out of bed!

From then on, icebergs were the common sight, and penguin sightings became more and more common.

A bit South of 66°, we hit the pack ice. You truely feel dependant of the elements, sailing through an oil sea, the continent clear on the horizon, and yet the distance between the 2 completely obscured by ice sheets and small icebergs. We managed to get through a bit of pack, but then had to radio ahead to the base and get the helicopter out to guide us through the main part of the pack.

The sea was quite clear on the other side, and we had a nice sail up to Dumont d'Urville. The base is located on an island called the Île des Pétrels. Next to it used to be 4 little islands, which were blasted and connected to make a runway (a plan which never actually made it), now called the Lion. This is where the Astrolabe docks, and we access the main island by zodiac, where our welcome party was waiting.

5 days out of Hobart, just over a week out of Japan... and now at 66° 40 South, in a paradise of snow, ice, rock and penguins! How things can change fast!

Tasmanian Adventure (27th)

Today I behaved like a proper tourist, and did a guided tour, in order to get the "Classic Tasmanian Experience". For someone without a car, this is pretty much the only way you can get out of Hobart, and reliably back again the same day.

It was a small, nice group, with a family of 5 chinese, 2 lovely japanese girls, and 3 other people. And a very nice guide, who was a local, and so decided to brave the Tasmanian Summer in a T-shirt. Little did we know this was to cause an ongoing entertainment for us.

So off we drove, North along the Durwent river. It really gets empty fast once you leave Hobart behind. but the countryside is beautiful, with rolling fields in between higher hills. And the weather decides on a bit of spitting rain, making the greens brighter than ever, and creating a rainbow behind nearly every hill. There was only ever one visible at a time, but it was as if it was playing hide and seek with the bus, appearinf to the right then fading into some trees, before shining bright to the left at the next turn. It was wonderful.

As we seemed unperturbed by the sprinkles, the weather shifted grears, to deliver a mighty dump just as we arrived at Mout Field National Park. As we couldn't do the first walks in the rain, we headed up into the hills, to see a high plateau and an alpine lake. And, as we still seemed unperturbed, the weather really got upset (entirely because of the T-shirt, I am sure). So, as we drove out of the eucalyptus trees, a rocky and bare and, above all SNOW-COVERED plateau unfolded in front of us. The plateau was quite nice, but the alpine lake, under about 15cm of snow, was absolutely manificent.

Now this, according to our friendly guide, is not, in fact, normal weather for Tasmania in midsummer.

By then of course, the weather had pretty much exhausted all it's possibilities, so we had a dry-ish afternoon. We did many small walks in all the different types of forests they have around there. We got to see the world's second largest tree (or it was untill the tip got blown off), and walk through the odl eucalyptus forests, and through tree-fern forests.

And we saw Russell falls, which is a very impressive multi-layered waterfall, surrounded by huge fern rees and mosses, and small ferns.

Then we went to a small animal reserve, where we got to see tasmanian devils, kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, possums and wombats. They also have platypus in the stream there, but they're wild, and weren't fishing when we were there. I was really happy to be see some devils before they become extinct. And I absolutely fell in love with the wombats.

They're just as soft and cuddly as koalas, but are extremely intelligent. So when they're not sleeping, they will do everything they can to get into mischief. They are common pets apperently, and so they know that they also get hurt feelings if shouted at. And so for a while, they will be excessively cuddly and prop themselves on or behind your legs at every given chance. Then, when they feel they have excused themselves themselves enough, they will go and try and distroy something belonging to whoever had shouted at them! Now that's much more interesting than koalas will probably ever get!

As our tour guide had by now thawed out again and was turning a rosy pink colour again, the weather decided to give us a last little test.

So, up to Mount Wellington we went, and were greated by the colded wind I've ever felt (Antarctica included!). And snow, comming straight at you.

The tour guide finally gave up and stayed in the van, while we pushed our way to the lookout point. And, as the wind was so strong yu actually had a few chances to see Hobart through breaks in the clouds. And, as the final bouquet, a huge rainbow spread itself across the valley....

And, down in the port.... the Astrolabe!!! I guess my vacations are Hobart are over now.

Mount Nelson

As Saturday was Christmas, the Salamanca market was pushed to Sunday. It hosts a very interesting asortiment of local arts and crafts. Some nice fossils on sale too, but being inquisitive and suspicious of 'locally found' fossils, I went down to inspect the pebbles on the beach and it didn't take me long to find a few fossils for myself... The market also haf, for some reason, a large number of weisswust and sauercraut stalls. As it was just nearing on 9am, I passed on those.

My chosen directing for the day was Mount Nelson park, to the South of Hobart. Just on the side of the road was a masked plover (thank you, internet) couple with a cute little chick.

As everywhere out of downtown Hobart, the road to Mount Nelson went straight up the hill. And then, as it was become too steep even for Tasmanian standards, they started hichbacks!! But here, to my great surprise and joy, I found there were little hicking paths through the forest. These were steep, but at least you get trees. And you can follow your progress pretty well, as the 'trails' are called things like "sharp bend #2" and "flat bend #4".

I saw yet another wallaby in the forest, and as it wasn't too frightened I got to look at it for quite some time. Actually, having seen a hare in a meadow earlier, it took me quite some time to decide whether it was in fact a small wallaby or an exceptionally large hare...

Then lunch near a small stream, and then the downpour came. They had planned it, and it didn't last very long, so I can't complain too much, but it did send all the animal life into shelter.

At the top of Mount Nelson is a nice view of Hobart, as well as a clear view of all the Southern part of the Derwent river. There is a small museum set up in the old signal stationat the top too, which is interesting.

Then I continued South into the Truganini park, which is much wetter than the other parks, and so has a lot more ferns and mosses ... and even 3 kookaburras, laughing!

The walk back along the coast was quite pleasant, with very nice flower decorations all over, and many many small parks, some just large enough for a tree and a bench under it.