Claire of the Antarctic

And so to our destination, Bluebell Cottage. Honestly, I know my dear friends will not believe me, but in fact this little cottage was so named prior to the arrival of Miss Lehman! The sun shining, the union jack flying and the kettle boiling, life is quite perfect!

I hastily scramble across the scree, all the while keeping an eye out for exciting fossils and shiny rocks, whilst simultaneously trying to not fall over, to keep apace with Alan. Our desination lies in middle of this photograph.

And so upon landing on the snow runway at Fossil Bluff I was met by Alan and James. James jumped aboard the Twotter to take my seat, leaving Alan to introduce me to my new home.

This little hut is affectionately known as an apple hut, and houses the VHF radios and other emergency kit. My new home is but a short skiddoo drive from here, followed by a little scramble across fossil festooned glacial moraine.

For the geologists amongst you the stripes I do believe are strata, and these distinctive stripes indicate the final approach for my destination, Fossil Bluff.

From the co-pilot seat of the Twin Otter.

Doug Pearson mid flight.

Doug Pearson’s talisman, yogi bear, and his glamorous (not!) assistant for the day, me.

Matt von Tersch demonstrating the decibel monitor for assessing the degree of noise within the aircraft during flight.

Doug Pearson was flying us South, myself as co-pilot, and Matt von Tersch and Katrin were venturing further South to tend to an automatic weather station.

En route Doug decided to take a closer peak of some icebergs, at this point our height was just above sea level.

Let me take you back to 27th January 2010, 8.30am and Dr Claire Lehman is about to depart from Rothera base for a deep field trip. First destination: Fossil Bluff.

The evening prior to departure was Gould night, an evening of much fun and jollity, and crazy dancing with visitors from the American Research Ship, L.M. Gould.

Dave Wattam, of BAS HQ, had been part of the wharf team who slipped the Gould away and managed to acquire some fruit for his labours, Hurrah! Dave being the generous chap that he is very kindly donated his wage to Claire, as demonstrated by Claire.

The very fetching orange boiler suit is de rigeur attire for flying in Antarctica, as is the black waist belt, the microphone in my top pocket is for Chris Eldon Lee of Radio 4 and not part of standard issue kit! The plane awaits in the background and so without further ado we depart from Rothera, on runway 18, and head due South.