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!!!
