The ship arrived at Casey early on 17th January 1972. This is the first view we had of our
home for the next year. A little daunting wouldn't you say?
If you look closely you can just see a dark line of buildings snaking up the hill in the centre.
After the ship had been moored the weather became a little grimmer. And it stayed that way for most
of changeover.
We spent most of our days (starting at 6AM) on show dealing with the tasks of changeover.
Mostly this seemed to consist of unloading lots of gear brought from the ship and stacking in
places where it would be easily accessible even after several metres of snow had fallen.
This is the view of Casey from my cabin on the ship. It shows the stack of food raised above the expected
depth of snow.
However, to show a slightly brighter picture, have a look a this one from January 1973 when the ship had arrived
to take us back to Australia. The sun shone, the water was glassy and I didn't have to work nearly as hard
as I had when we arrived.
The photograph shows a vehicle called a Weasel being lowered from the ship onto a barge which will then
transport it to the landing area.
The Thala Dan left on 28th January and we were on our own for an expected 13 months or so. This turned out
to be not quite true, but that is a later part of the story. This shot shows the bay as seen
from the Physics Laboratory landing after the first snows had fallen and the sea ice had started to move
back in on the land.
