Greetings.
Due to popular request I have decided to post a few more photos of regular station life this time. However, having said that, regular station life actually includes some fairly irregular activities and experiences. For this reason I find it difficult to give an accurate account of exactly what it is like to live here; things that I take for granted might be things that interest others.
For example driving a hägglunds.
Aside from actual work in the office and meteorological goings on, I am also part of the hydroponics team. The plants need daily maintenance (topping up water, nutrient levels, regulating pH levels, harvesting etc) so we have created a roster for whoever is interested: I spend maybe 30mins to 1 hour in there every Friday.
As you may be able to see the rooms are quite small, but we still manage to grow a good variety of things. We have plenty of herbs growing (thyme, parsley, dill, sage, and more) as well as lettuce, rocket, tomatoes, and cucumbers. The UV lights in the two rooms are on timers to simulate daylight and night-time. Im afraid to say its not exactly 100% organic though... 
As I think I already mentioned, we have a small brewery here too (these are for you Danny boy, congrats on little bubba Olivier :) We make many varieties of beer, some of which aren’t too bad at all, and the best of which are the honey beer and the alcoholic ginger beer. And what good is a brewery without a bar?
Ive also added some pictures of some of the other facilities in the Redshed, since quite a bit of my spare time is also spent with these. Table tennis, air hockey, pool table and darts board. There is also a spa and sauna in the Tank House, and various pieces of gym equipment.
Since I have now been field trained (photos to come soon), I am allowed to explore the ‘extended station limits’ on my own, providing I take a field pack and a radio, and have permission to do so from the Station Leader (SL). This means I am allowed to go to places like Shirley Island on my own and also the ‘recreation area’, which is an area about 2km by 2km adjacent to the station (green boundary on the map below… dad, right click on the image and ‘save as’, then you can open it and zoom in, hehe). Those of us in the fire team must find someone to take our place whenever we leave station limits (yellow boundary on the map), and as fire chief this means one of the two deputies… you cant have just any old person as fire chief :)
The photos below were taken within the extended station limits area, so theres still some pretty cool things to see in the station rec area.
The photo above was taken looking into the ice-wave from above... with a little help from photoshop to bring out the colours.
Below: looking west from Reeve Hill onto Casey Station. 
Everyone on station has a name tag on the fire board. This is used in case of an emergency, where the muster officer must cross off each person, and make sure no one is missing should there be a fire or Search And Rescue (SAR) called. Once you leave station for any reason you must place your tag on the ‘intentions board’ and provide certain details of where you are going, who with, for how long etc. Names within the red tape (below) MUST be filled by someone in the fire team, ie. Breathing Apparatus (BA) crew. Welcome to Antarctica, land of the acronym.
One thing that I am not taking for granted here is the amount of daylight. I think we are up to almost 22 hours of sun-up! It goes down briefly from about 00 midnight to 2am, but even then it is still well and truly light enough to go for a late night hike/ski/jolly. The light is just constant! For someone who has never been closer to a pole than about 53 degrees north, it’s very strange. I think the ice and snow everywhere also adds to the effect.
I took these photos (above) as I left work at almost midnight on the 4th of December. Ive added the 2nd photo here with an over-exposed sky since the 1st doesn’t really give a good representation of just how light it is at this time of the night.
Finally ive added some photos of my room. Its quite cosy actually, and very warm, but also VERY dry. Ive put a bucket of water infront of the vent with a rag half dipped in it to try and bring up the humidity a little. It hold about 3.5 litres of water and needs replacing maybe once every 10 days or so!
Due to popular request I have decided to post a few more photos of regular station life this time. However, having said that, regular station life actually includes some fairly irregular activities and experiences. For this reason I find it difficult to give an accurate account of exactly what it is like to live here; things that I take for granted might be things that interest others.
For example driving a hägglunds.Aside from actual work in the office and meteorological goings on, I am also part of the hydroponics team. The plants need daily maintenance (topping up water, nutrient levels, regulating pH levels, harvesting etc) so we have created a roster for whoever is interested: I spend maybe 30mins to 1 hour in there every Friday. As you may be able to see the rooms are quite small, but we still manage to grow a good variety of things. We have plenty of herbs growing (thyme, parsley, dill, sage, and more) as well as lettuce, rocket, tomatoes, and cucumbers. The UV lights in the two rooms are on timers to simulate daylight and night-time. Im afraid to say its not exactly 100% organic though... As I think I already mentioned, we have a small brewery here too (these are for you Danny boy, congrats on little bubba Olivier :) We make many varieties of beer, some of which aren’t too bad at all, and the best of which are the honey beer and the alcoholic ginger beer. And what good is a brewery without a bar?Ive also added some pictures of some of the other facilities in the Redshed, since quite a bit of my spare time is also spent with these. Table tennis, air hockey, pool table and darts board. There is also a spa and sauna in the Tank House, and various pieces of gym equipment. Since I have now been field trained (photos to come soon), I am allowed to explore the ‘extended station limits’ on my own, providing I take a field pack and a radio, and have permission to do so from the Station Leader (SL). This means I am allowed to go to places like Shirley Island on my own and also the ‘recreation area’, which is an area about 2km by 2km adjacent to the station (green boundary on the map below… dad, right click on the image and ‘save as’, then you can open it and zoom in, hehe). Those of us in the fire team must find someone to take our place whenever we leave station limits (yellow boundary on the map), and as fire chief this means one of the two deputies… you cant have just any old person as fire chief :)The photos below were taken within the extended station limits area, so theres still some pretty cool things to see in the station rec area. The photo above was taken looking into the ice-wave from above... with a little help from photoshop to bring out the colours.Below: looking west from Reeve Hill onto Casey Station. Everyone on station has a name tag on the fire board. This is used in case of an emergency, where the muster officer must cross off each person, and make sure no one is missing should there be a fire or Search And Rescue (SAR) called. Once you leave station for any reason you must place your tag on the ‘intentions board’ and provide certain details of where you are going, who with, for how long etc. Names within the red tape (below) MUST be filled by someone in the fire team, ie. Breathing Apparatus (BA) crew. Welcome to Antarctica, land of the acronym. One thing that I am not taking for granted here is the amount of daylight. I think we are up to almost 22 hours of sun-up! It goes down briefly from about 00 midnight to 2am, but even then it is still well and truly light enough to go for a late night hike/ski/jolly. The light is just constant! For someone who has never been closer to a pole than about 53 degrees north, it’s very strange. I think the ice and snow everywhere also adds to the effect. I took these photos (above) as I left work at almost midnight on the 4th of December. Ive added the 2nd photo here with an over-exposed sky since the 1st doesn’t really give a good representation of just how light it is at this time of the night. Finally ive added some photos of my room. Its quite cosy actually, and very warm, but also VERY dry. Ive put a bucket of water infront of the vent with a rag half dipped in it to try and bring up the humidity a little. It hold about 3.5 litres of water and needs replacing maybe once every 10 days or so! I added the above photo of my window not only to make you insainly jealous of my view (im on the second floor of the Redshed, looking north), but to also show you the thickness of the walls of our buildings. Judging by the size of my mandoline I would say there is a good 2 feet of insulation there!
Ok, thats it for now. If youd like to hear about anything else, or see photos of anything else just ask, im here all year...
