One thing that has taken up a lot of our time and thoughts here at Casey this summer has been the newly opened Hobart to Casey airlink. The airlink, which has been many years in the planning, made its first actual landing in Australian Antarctic Territory this season, and has subsequently made somewhere between 5 and 10 more since December’s inaugural. 
The runway is some 70kms from Casey, and is situated up on the Antarctic plateau, essentially on a big sheet of ice that moves 10 meters seaward every year. There really isnt a lot up there to see - its a desert. Below we have Farmer Joel standing on the end of the 4km long runway.
Nevertheless it is an interesting place to visit for a few reasons. A trip to the runway (I’ve done a few now for aviation observations at the aerodrome) means either a 2 hour bumpy hagglunds ride; 15-20 minutes in a CASA (plane); 
or around 4 to 5 hours in the ‘Noddy’ (zero to 10km/hr in a record breaking 25 minutes). 
On Friday, however, Todor is going to attempt the Wilkins to Casey trip using another mode of transportation. He is going to try skiing the 70km, with people sponsoring him per kilometre, and all proceeds going to Camp Quality. Id love to accompany him but unfortunately I have to work…Whichever way you travel to Wilkins Runway you will pass into the Antarctic Circle. Casey lies at 66 degrees 17 minutes South, just north of the Circle which lies at 66 degrees 33 minutes South. Apologies, but a really lame photo at this point is a unavoidable…
Once you actually get to the runway what you see is a whole heap of demountable type containers in a single line running north/south. The logic behind this is that the prevailing katabatic winds - caused by masses of super cooled air on the plateau running via gravity toward the sea - come from the east. In such situations wind scours build up on the eastern face of objects, while blizz tails build up behind the western face. Since the snowfall and average wind speeds are fairly high at Wilkins, the potential for container-covering blizz tails is quite high, therefore no object is ever left directly west of another.
A fluctuating crew of around 6 or 7 people have been living at Wilkins over the past 3 months, maintaining the runway, and if you ask me THAT is doing it tough. We are living like spoilt royalty at Casey! Below is their toilet/shower container, which is not attached to their living quarters, so in an 80 knot blizzard you would reeeeeally want to save up those number one's and two's. 
But despite all the hardships, the guys at Wilkins have been good enough to construct a lovely Arrivals and Departures lounge for airbus passengers. I think they call it the Quantas Lounge.
Oh, and for anyone wondering, yes, the runway is made of ice… they land an airbus on ice! However it is covered with a layer of compacted snow prior to every landing, and apparently has the breaking coefficient of a wet tar runway… I think someone is having a lend. 
In any case, after a very busy few weeks with airbus flights bringing some 30 more scientists and the like to station, I think everyone is looking forward to the last flight on the February 1. After this it will be only another week or so before our much anticipated resupply ship arrives (Voyage 4) taking with it all of our summer crew and leaving just 19 of us here for some 8 or 9 months bondage… bring it on!
