Holidays part 2

I had a rather lovely week last week, as you can see, this blog entry is a little late due to my having been on holiday. Hazel and I had decided to go on a walking holiday across the Barff to try and see some Macaroni Penguins and the other side of the Barff. We timed our exit rather well, the rest of the base has been coming down with the flu left right and centre. They caught it off the fishing vessel ‘San Aspiring’ and it has whipped through the base like wildfire. The main thing apparently is just to make sure that only a couple of people get it at a time or else the whole base shuts down and that is a rather bad thing. The rat project is rather worried that they might catch it in the field which would be a disaster for them but so far they seem to have escaped.

As the complete opposite to my last trip to the Barff the weather was forecast to be horrific - solid snow and wind for three days, but we decided to risk it anyway. As it was the weather was not nearly as bad as forecast and we actually had better weather than they did 10km away on base.On Thursday we were dropped off at Corral hut with two rather large packs. We stashed our snowshoes, avalanche transceivers and avalanche probe at the hut with the plan that if it did start snowing we would scuttle back there and so not need to carry them with us. With the sun beaming down on us we hulked our packs on our backs and started the tramp to Rookery. As ever, getting anywhere in South Georgia involves a fair amount of hills but first we had to negotiate rather furry tussock. We eventually passed the ‘Furry line’ (like the tree line but with sharper teeth) and started tramping on rock and scree. We fell into a routine pretty swiftly. Hazel is just that little bit quicker and rather a lot fitter than me so she took the nasty job of trail blazer while I trailed behind checking navigation and generally huffing and puffing. We reached a place called Three Lakes and had our first pause there, rather regretting not having brought towels for a swim. We then slowly climbed to the Pass called Rookery Col. There we stopped and had lunch and a short snooze (well we were on holiday).

Rookery

The descent from Rookery Col involved a gulley full of thigh deep snow and rather uncertain footing under that which meant that one moment you were dancing along in an inch of snow and the next you were floundering (remember we had packs that weighed about 20kg) in thigh deep powder. I managed, and I have NO idea how, to get just one leg stuck so badly that Hazel had to come back and dig me out, not before taking photographs of course. 

Snowy gully

We eventually came through the snow and found ourselves in Rookery Bay. The sky by now had clouded over a bit and threatened rain so we quickly pitched camp, threw some essentials into one pack and went in search of Macaroni Penguins. We walked all along the bottom of the cliffs and just when we had hit a dead end Hazel spotted some white objects on a tussock cliff. We climbed up the tussock and as we nearly reached the top I suddenly heard a rather unusual chirping and turned to find a Pipit (a bird that looks remarkably like a sparrow but that is really rather rare) hovering above us. I am incredibly pleased to have seen one and I think that alone made the whole holiday worthwhile. 

The Macaronis, once we had found them, were very, very worthwhile. Some of them were moulting and were looking as bedraggled as only moulting penguins can look but others had finished the process and were looking extremely beautiful with their bright red eyes and their wonderful eyebrows. We went down to the sea and also watched them come out of the water, battling against some rather large waves onto a flat rock. A wonderful sight.

Macaronis

 On our return we had a gourmet meal of out of date ration packs, rehydrated to perfection by Hazel who turned out to be able to boil water really very well. Both before going and on our return we were slightly derided for not taking any alcohol and for eating only ration packs but since neither of us drink that much and we knew our packs would be heavy we decided that rat packs, as they’re called, were for the best. I quite enjoy rat packs really, well, I enjoy the hot and filling food that they provide, let’s not exaggerate too much. That night was rather windy and I woke once to find the canvas of the tent touching my nose, despite double poling it. The next morning we did the morning sched (when away from base you have to do a nightly scheduled radio call: ‘sched’ to let them know where you are and what your intentions are for the next day so they have more hope of finding you if anything goes amiss). However, the doc (currently Hazel) and the BC (Base Commander) also have to do a ‘sched’ at 0900 every morning to have any issues at base reported to them. Boring but necessary. After that we broke camp and had an explore of a cave below the camp site. Then it was back on with the packs and off to Cobblers cove around the corner. To get there we had to negotiate across a scree slope with a rather strong wind trying to blow us off. It was most disconcerting and rather unpleasant I can assure you. We reached Cobblers which is a lovely little bay, almost completely encircled, and from there we could see Godthul, the next bay along which had once had a whaling station in it. After investigating whether we could go around the base of the cliffs we decided to try the ridge above us to see if we could move on. After humping our packs up to the start of the ridge it became rapidly apparent that we were NOT going to be attempting that, even if we had no packs and were roped up. I am afraid of heights and even the thought of the ridge was enough to make my knees shake a little. I was rather pleased when we returned to a nice little campsite we had found and pitched camp there for the night. 

Cobblers camp

 The next morning (Saturday) we woke to the sound of a deluge. It was raining hard and fast and it was so unpleasant that we took one look out of the tent and decided to stay in our bags for as long as it poured.  It was so horrible that we couldn’t even open the porch to boil water so we had our lunch of oatcakes, marmite and cheese instead. We didn’t dare wash it down with anything because the last thing we wanted to do was need to go out in the rain to pee. We had a very lazy morning with the only worrying point being when Hazel looked into the porch of the tent again and saw that there was a river running under our tent. It was at that moment that I noticed that every time she moved I felt the tent floor wobble. It was like lying on a waterbed, not knowing whether the floor was about to start leaking at any moment. We were both very glad to be in a new tent and these tents (Terra Nova) are very good so we remained fairly dry, cozy and happy. The rain reduced about 1300 so we decided (since we knew snow was forecast and we weren’t sure whether we would get back up that gulley with any more snow) to break camp and leg it back over to the other side of the Barff. It was wet!! It was very wet and rather unpleasant getting out of that warm dry tent and into wet gear, packing away a wet tent and then carrying our packs (now heavier due to the wet tent) back the way we had come. 

That would be a river under our tent!

 I am not entirely sure how we got back up to Rookery Col, it was one small step at a time but we did and when we got there we found ourselves in a break in the mist. We were covered in the very fine droplets you get in a mist and rather chilly so when we had to make a choice of whether to go down to Reindeer Valley, pitch a sopping tent and then sit in wet kit trying to keep our down bags from getting damp, or heading for the hut at Corral where we knew we could hang things up and wouldn’t have as much trouble keeping things dry, the choice was pretty easy. 

We made our way back to the hut and I immediately put the stove and the Tilley lamp on. After a feast of our breakfasts (which we had not eaten and so had not had any lunch because we had had our lunch ration for breakfast) and getting into dry things we felt like kings. We decided that there was no chance of us getting carbon monoxide poisoning (a real fear in those huts) since we could see the stuff we had hung up waving in the breeze coming through the huts. Thank God for Dry bags though. Without them we would have been miserable; as it was we could get into dry thermals and socks and were very happy. 

The next day it started to snow so we decided to walk to Godthul via Reindeer valley carrying one pack between two and going at a leisurely pace. However; try and imagine, it is snowing outside, not hard I grant you but still, you are in your warm dry kit and you know that if you want to be warm and dry tonight you have to get into the cold damp kit you attempted to dry last night. There was a good deal of whimpering I can tell you, from both of us as we dragged wet thermals over our heads and then pushed our feet into freezing sodden boots. We warmed up pretty quickly once we started walking though and it was very pleasant. The only downer of the whole day was Hazel leading me up a scramble to get into Reindeer Valley. I was not entirely happy with the height but we were fine and I ‘manned up’ and stopped whimpering soon enough. Reindeer Valley was definitely worth it. At the foot of this long flat valley was a lake which normally would have been limpid but was now slightly milky from the run off from all the rain we had had. It was a real delta of a valley and we kept to the side of the hill to attempt not to get bogged down. The sun came out through the snow and it was truly lovely. We got over to above Godthul and had lunch in a tiny cavelet. We got pretty cold quickly though so we turned our heads for home. By the time we came out of Reindeer valley the snow was coming down rather harder and we turned to our snow goggles to keep the wind from flinging it into our eyes as we negotiated a small ridge. Another night in the hut proved to us that Corral is definitely not the hut to be in in winter, it was bloody freezing but our bags did keep us warm. 

Monday was our last half day, we were due to be picked up from the beach at 1500 so we decided to wander down the coast to try and find a good view of the glacier. We had a glorious lunch on top of a ridge with the whole world at our feet.
 

Lunch plus the world at our feet

 We returned, disturbing a herd of reindeer, and then had a last cup of tea on the beach watching the boats coming for us. It was glorious and I am very grateful to Hazel for making it such a lovely holiday. I will however quote my mother on the subject: “I'm so glad you enjoyed the holiday - and SO glad I didn't have to be there too, with a river running through the tent and cold wet boots to put on every morning. You are insane - you know that, don't you?” Yes I am insane but being here is a truly glorious insanity. 

Have a great week- go on, do something insane!

It's so fluffy! Great Petrel chick