At long long last the ship that is meant to be taking us home arrived on Sunday! Although just a matter of days earlier we had received a few new people via two C212 light aircrafts, it wasn’t until I saw the Aurora Australis anchored in the middle of Newcomb Bay that I finally realised our winter was over. 
C212s arriving at the Skiway, mid-November. The first people we had seen since Febuary 14 - nine months earlier.
The AA (Aurora Australis) in Newcomb Bay - 1st of December.
Since Sunday we have been inundated by fresh fruit, mail, and new faces, and at this stage look likely to leave on Friday – 3 days from now! It’s a sad thought actually, because I know that once I get on the ship I’m probably never going to see this place again. Don’t get me wrong, I’m looking forward to getting home, but it will be very sad to leave, and I’ll definitely miss the place!
I dare say this will be my last post before getting home (3 or 4 weeks from now), as there is only email access on the ship, so the end of the story will have to wait for now.
However it was originally October that the ship was meant to arrive, but as you know, that wasn’t to be, and by the end of October we were still in limbo over when the ship would arrive and when we would see some new faces. In a way we eventually got used to the fact, and even started to see the positives in it. It meant we were able to get out a few more times before being inundated with any pesky summerers, and I think in the end we were all a little grateful that we didn’t have to share the place with 50 or 60 more people just yet.
In the last week of October I walked to Wilkes again to spend the night with Dom, Tom and Curly. We again cooked up a few wood-fire pizzas, just for old times sake, and said goodbye to Wilkes the next day (surely this would be the last time we get to visit the 1950s heritage hut – used by both the Australians and Americans as a Radio Communications hut while Wilkes was still an operational station). 
In October the penguins returned. First in dribs and drabs…
Then in numbers…
I dare say this will be my last post before getting home (3 or 4 weeks from now), as there is only email access on the ship, so the end of the story will have to wait for now.However it was originally October that the ship was meant to arrive, but as you know, that wasn’t to be, and by the end of October we were still in limbo over when the ship would arrive and when we would see some new faces. In a way we eventually got used to the fact, and even started to see the positives in it. It meant we were able to get out a few more times before being inundated with any pesky summerers, and I think in the end we were all a little grateful that we didn’t have to share the place with 50 or 60 more people just yet.In the last week of October I walked to Wilkes again to spend the night with Dom, Tom and Curly. We again cooked up a few wood-fire pizzas, just for old times sake, and said goodbye to Wilkes the next day (surely this would be the last time we get to visit the 1950s heritage hut – used by both the Australians and Americans as a Radio Communications hut while Wilkes was still an operational station). In October the penguins returned. First in dribs and drabs…
Then in numbers… 
And wasted no time in getting down to the business of what they’re here for… 
By the end of October, and into November, the penguin colonies were full to the brim, which made walking around Shirley Island just that little bit more exciting again. 
The numbers of other animals also grew during October and November. On separate trips to Shirley during November I saw a young Elephant Seal, and a Leopard seal. Neither have been seen all that often, especially near Shirley (there is an Elephant seal colony at Browning, but they only really settle there later in summer when the sea-ice has blown out) so I think I was pretty lucky to see both.
Elephant seal above, Leopard seal below.
Leopard seals have a distinctive serpentine appearance.There are also plenty of Snow Petrels back,
and Wilson’s Storm Petrels, 
and Skuas.
Infact Shirley Island was so much like a David Attenborough documentary that Curley and I decided it would be nice to camp there. So we walked over one night and pitched the tent. It was beautiful! 
And finally, just a week before the ship arrived, and despite never thinking I’d see the place again, I managed to get back down to the Peterson Mellon for one last night with Tod and Troy (one of the newly arrived C212 pilots) to celebrate the coming of the end of winter, and Ari’s 21st. 
The sea-ice was breaking out at a rate of knots, and we suspected we would be the last to visit the area before next season. We were right, because we were told that just a few days ago the ice in Sparkes Bay was completely blown out, and sea-ice travel has been closed for the year.
So now, with the station changeover already three days in, we are being told that Friday will be our departure day. After that we’ll have a leisurely three-week cruise on the southern ocean, stop in at Davis station for good measure, and land in Freemantle some time shortly after Christmas, all going well. But one thing I've learnt from being here is that you can never quite rely on things going to plan in Antarctica... they call it "The A-factor".In any case, apologies for the brevity of this post (I could’ve found better photos etc if I had time), but with things as busy as they are at the moment I'll just have to wrap things up properly once I’m home. Until that time, with a tear in my eye, I'll have to say for the last time...
Bye from Casey!!!
The Peterson Melon (centre-frame) nestled among the hills of Peterson Island, with the huge Vanderford Glacier in the background.
As we left station the overcast sky suddenly cleared and what little wind there was had stopped completely, just for us! 
We headed south via Bosquett Island where we saw 11 Weddell seals and 8 pups lying on the sea-ice, basking in the sun. Starting around mid October the Weddells come up through tide-cracks in the sea-ice (which are more pronounced by this time of year) to give birth. Bosquett Island is a known haulout area and pupping site for these seals. 
This photo shows our quads parked on the sea-ice near Bosquett, looking toward the distant Peterson Glacier, which slopes down steeply toward the sea. You can see the lines of crevasses littering the glacier in this photo.
After the first layers of snow we found solid ice further down. You don’t want to be “hanging on” by the time you get to Browning.
Spend a year here and you become an expert on critiquing anything to do with the Antarctic Division… we’re such spoilt whingers!
We explored a few ice-lakes on the peninsula before heading off to scale the impressive peak of Teigan Island.
This photo from Teigan Is, looking toward Browning Peninsula, shows how tide-cracks form around the base of islands and bergs, cracking as the sea-ice rises and falls with the tide.
Bob and I atop Teigan. Bob is adding our names to the parchment, and elite few who have scaled this mighty peak!
The steep decent from Teigan. We then went up Boffa Island (below), where we stopped for lunch.
Silhouette of Tod with the unmistakeable shape of Teigan Island on the right.
After lunch on Boffa we decided to get up close to some of the larger bergs in Penny bay. This was amazing! I don’t think I should try to describe what it was like to see these things, but hopefully some photos can give you an idea. 
The three photos above are curtesy of Todor. Its impressive to hear these bergs moaning, groaning and cracking while youre so close to them. 
By afternoon we had made it to Peterson Island and the melon, where we were to stay the second night. Not far from the melon there is a proclamation, rolled up inside a cylinder, which claims the adjacent land for the USA (hence the flag in the picture below). I’m not 100% sure how this works in regard to the Australian claim (perhaps it is now void since the Antarctic Treaty has only been effective as of the 50's), but the US proclamation has been there, under a pile of rocks, since January 1948.
The Peterson Melon, while it may not look like much, is actually quite an efficient field ‘hut’ in terms of using the space and heating etc. Though I had seen it a few times this was the first time I had stayed overnight in the melon, and I was surprised at how well it fit the four of us inside, compared to say Browning Hut, which has a terrible layout.
Above (foreground right) and below you can see the melon with Motherway Island standing tall in the background.
After settling in we decided to go for an evening stole to the summit of nearby Motherway Island, and take in la buena vista. A good place for a bit of product placement...
Where else do you get a view like this?
Presuming this berg had recently broken off the nearby Vanderford Glacier, I am at a loss as to how the tunnel would have formed in the first place. But I have to say I kind of like the mystique of not knowing. 
You can image how much Bob, Curly and I wanted to go in here (I know I wanted to at least), but I've heard too many stories about big bergs rolling over unexpectedly... I didn't buy it with this one... I think Bobby was just trying to scare us, but it worked.
The pups were very cute! They were probably just a few days old at this point – very floppy, silky fir, and would look at you with big glassy eyes. 
Of course Tod also took plenty of photos here, with a better zoom lens than mine (we’re not meant to be closer than 20m or so), but he somehow seems to have a knack of getting into the right place at the right time. I don’t know how he does it but he just knows how to take good photos! The three below are his. 
Having satisfied ourselves that this was one of the best jollies ever we turned tails for home.
Given that the ship was meant to arrive one week later, I was happy at this point that I had seen what I needed to of Browning and Peterson, knowing that it would be almost impossible to get down there once ‘summer’ was into full swing (science projects, airbus flights, vehicles booked out, field training for the new guys). However it is now more than a month later and there is still a small glimmer of hope that I might be able to get there again for a cheeky mid-week jolly. It really is by far the best place we can go here at Casey! 
Tods panorama of the Vanderford Glacier, looking from Browning Peninsula.
