Jon and I slept in a bunk room in the "ski chalet"; Suze had the luxury of an actual bedroom in the main part of the station. Jon didn't quite make it to breakfast, but then again it had been 3 am before we'd finally got to bed.

We borrowed a radio, which is a kind of a passport to roam the surrounding countryside, and headed off up the granite hills surrounding the station. "We" by now had grown to include Inger and Laurent, two ice-coring types who will fly with us to Dome C to conclude the "EPICA" ice drilling project.

It was a glorious day, absolutely still and with a crystal clear blue sky. Mount Melbourne, 42 km distance, looked so close you could imagine walking over and touching it. Terra Nova Bay must be in one of the most beautiful settings in Antarctica, with rocky mountains, a glacier or two, and a great sweeping bay - currently frozen.

It is on this frozen bay that the Hercules lands. As the summer progresses, the ice gets thinner and the runway gets shorter, until eventually the strip must be abandoned till the following year. This year, the ice is unusually thin as the effects of global warming take their toll. Fortunately, with all of the civilized world now signed up to the Kyoto Protocol, we may start to see the problem being taken seriously. We're planning to fly home on the last Hercules flight from Terra Nova Bay, currently scheduled for 3 December. If we miss this, the only alternative is a ship from Dumont d'Urville some weeks later. So, with our return date firmly constrained and a huge amount of work awaiting us, we're all anxious to get to Dome C as soon as we can. However, for now all we can do is wait.

We clambered up the rocky slopes above Terra Nova Bay, occasionally falling into small ice drifts or slipping on icy patches, until we reached the summit. There we could look down on Mario Zucchelli Station, as the Italian facility at Terra Nova Bay is now known. Mario Zucchelli led the Italian Antarctic program for many years, before tragically passing away last year. He was a great believer in international science, and his warm welcome to the UNSW group at Dome C will always be fondly remembered.

Many of the boulders on the hillside have been weathered into quite extraordinary shapes. For reasons unknown to me but probably obvious to geologists, the rocks have worn away on their underside, leaving structures that look like tables. One rock was worn into a cylindrical shell. We persuaded Inger to crawl inside it and pretend to be an Antarctic tortoise. I'm not sure why, now.

Much of the afternoon was spent speculating on the possibility of a flight to Dome C within the foreseeable future. This year the Italian program has only one Twin Otter at its disposal instead of the usual two. The weather this year has been dreadful, and the flight schedules are already way behind. We visited the met office and were shown satellite images and prognostic charts, none of which inspired much optimism. A huge low had moved across Dome C creating winds of around 23 knots, which is extremely unusual. The last flight in to Dome C took note of the huge cross-wind and had landed across the strip, in time-honoured Twin Otter fashion. Best predictions were that we would spend another 48 hours on the coast.

However, over dinner it was announced that the Twin Otter would be leaving at 9 pm. Half of the people who had flown in from Christchurch would be on this flight, the remainder on a second flight some time in the indefinite future. Fortunately we were in the first group, but could take only our personal gear and not any of the equipment we had brought in. Laurent came too, but Inger will have to wait for the next flight. Possibly she can amuse herself by pretending to be an Antarctic tortoise again.

We lumbered down onto the ice shelf in our Extreme Cold Weather Gear, feeling a bit silly because it's a beautiful evening and around zero Celsius, and pottered around taking photos of things (mainly each other). Meanwhile the ground crew loaded the heavy items (such as our spare Stirling engine) onto the plane with implausible looking tractors. The pilot cheerfully informed us we were right at the weight limit for take-off, looked us up and down and entered his rather flattering estimates of our personal body weight onto a chart, then motioned us to climb aboard. Moments later we were thundering across the ice and the Twin Otter groaned heavily into the air.

Still gaining altitude, we crossed the Trans-Antarctic mountains with metres to spare and set off across the plateau. After two hours we landed at the appropriately named "Mid Point Charlie", which consists of a pile of fuel drums and - such is progress - a prepared skiway. Apparently a small crew had just spent 3 days alone at Mid Point carefully grading the strip. In previous years we've simply bounced merrily across the sastrugi, watching the skis of the Twin Otter flap up and down over the bumps; this year we glided smoothly to rest.

It took roughly 30 minutes to refuel the plane with 6 drums of Jet-A1, and then we were airborne again. I slept for most of this second stage, to be awoken by Jon who declared that not only was Dome C in sight, but that the AASTINO was still standing. On landing we were greeted by many old friends from the station and welcomed inside. There's 5 hours time difference between Dome C and Terra Nova, so we arrived at the same time we had left - around 9 pm.

With some difficulty I dissuaded Jon from heading straight out to the AASTINO. While we were both very eager to find out its condition, it would be very easy with our tired and oxygen-starved brains to make a serious blunder. Jon retaliated by turning the heater in our tent up to full blast - I awoke a few hours later and the tent was like a sauna. Although it was below -40C outside and blowing a gale, I propped the
door open with a broom and 30 minutes later the tent was habitable again. Jon, as far as I can tell, slept calmly through most of this.

Suze, once again, has an actual bedroom in an actual building (well, to be fair it's actually a bunch of shipping containers bolted together) and hence blissfully unaware of the perils her colleagues were facing.
- John