Click here for a map of the Larsemann Hills, and here for a close-up of the eastern part, containing the Chinese Base Zhong Shan, the Russian Bases Progress I & II, and the Australian Law Base.

We were scheduled to fly to Zhong Shan, the Chinese base 110 kilometres west of Davis, at 10 on Monday morning and instead we left at 9. The helipad was crowded with the lake-sampling parties whose outings had been cancelled due to the wind, and a geology party who had just returned from far in the Vestfolds. We flew early to try and beat the weather, which was getting bad. After dropping us at Zhong Shan, the choppers were going to continue as far as the Amery Ice Shelf to pick up the seismic team who had left for an overnight stay in blizzard tents on the ice, and had instead been forced - by the same weather that kept delaying our departure from Davis - to stay there for a week.

Damon, Peter and I piled our stuff into the Squirrel choppers and it almost didn't all fit. We had a new computer and monitor to replace the old one logging the data from our magnetometer at Zhong Shan, a fish-bin full of food for use if we stayed at Law Base (a collection of Australian Apple Huts an hour's walk into the hills behind Zhong Shan), our calibration cables and coils, a few signal generators, oscilloscopes and what-not, and a pack each. In the end we had to leave behind two cases of home-brew we'd planned to take along for Jin, the Chinese guy who looks after our Zhong Shan magnetometers during the year. Ash came with us to help the Chinese tune their Dauphin's rotor motor, and the environmental officer Wang Zipan came too, to return to his base after a week at Davis learning about our environmental policies. The choppers were chockers. In each one we removed one of the two back seats and stacked crates in its place, and then on top of the crates we stacked packs, and then around the packs we hurriedly shoved the HF radio, laptop computer, food, etc. We piled into the choppers and took off pronto. The wind gusted us around as we flew over the Sorsdal Glacier and we swung under the rotor like a decoration hanging from a christmas tree. I started to feel concerned and looked at the pilot Rik to see if he looked worried. He was turned backwards in his seat using both hands to take a photo of a huge calving iceberg we'd just flown over. So no, I guessed it was not a terror situation.

Then I remembered that in the rush all our packs had ended up in the other chopper, which meant that if we crashed or had to emergency-land then we would have no extra warm clothes, no sleeping bag, no bivvy bag, no warm gloves. By the Law of Irony this of course meant we would now crash. I wisely decided to keep this to myself.

Nonetheless, we landed at Zhong Shan safely about forty minutes later, and kicked up a tonne of dust. Rik kept the rotors going to enable a speedy get-away to the Amery; we unpacked our stuff hurriedly while he waved his arms at a Chinese guy who for some unfathomable reason had decided it was a good time to start driving around the rotor-high bulldozer that was parked right near the helipad. Rik took off; Leigh landed the second chopper; we unloaded more stuff and left the Law Base pee-tins and food for him to drop off for us at the Apple Huts two kilometers into the hills before continuing onto the Amery as well.

It was really quiet in the main communal building. We couldn't work out why until Zipan pointed out it was only 8 a.m. here - Zhong Shan is 2 hours behind Davis. Zipan was very exuberant in the manner of someone who's returned home after being a stranger in a foreign base. We sat in the lounge and drank tea - hot water with green leaves floating in it - and chatted and looked through the Davis guestbook. There were neat messages there from visitors from Iceland, Germany, Russia and other places, but most were Australians. Everyone was very formal except the Aussies, who wrote nicknames, anecdotes, and some fairly dodgey stories about pub exploits and mid-winter Cinderella plays - the overall impression was that Davis was like the over-relaxed next-door neighbour who always throws the fun, loutish, drunken parties. It seemed simultaneously really cool and friendly and easy-going, and also a little bit something that you also felt instinctively like apologising for.

After a while we wandered up to the hut and got to work. Our magnetometer coils are down a steep hill right near the sea-ice edge, in a bay protected by a wall of grounded bergs. It is a very beautiful spot. The cables from the equipment run up the hill and into a tiny little red hut/shippingcontainer which houses the data-logging gear. The outer hut door was so hard to swing on its hinges that we only opened it once (when we arrived) and shut it once (just before we were about to go back to Davis) - the inner door was sufficient to keep the warm air from the heaters in. Inside, there was just enough room for a desk and a chair and a few people - provided you didn't mind standing mashed into a corner, or perching on the side of a box of equipment. The walls were covered in old, grainy Ansett posters of Cradle Mountain and of tanned guys playing beach-volleyball at Noosa.

We replaced the computer in the hut and the guys started work on installing the ADAS rack and changing over the way the time signal is obtained. Jin and Wong, the space physics guys, came over to say hi and by the time we were doing some calibrations of the rack there were three or four Chinese guys just hanging out with us in the hut. When Damon and Peter started getting embroiled in ADAS stuff (not my area of expertise) I took a break and went to the room they've given me for our stay, and ended up falling asleep for about an hour.

The rocks here in the Larsemann Hills are even more beautiful than the Vestfolds. I have kept a small rock which is a goldy stone embedded with something mica-ish so that it looks like a gold nugget full of glinty black crystals. There is also white quartz containing large red garnety things. The Larsemanns are so much yellower than at Davis.

It snowed this afternoon, too. It is lovely.

Cultural things, all in a mish-mash:

(1) not having to take your shoes off when you walk into a building - it's very strange.
(2) Having a very large room to yourself with a private bathroom. It feels like I'm in the Hilton. Although - the hot water to the living quarters is only turned on twice a week. Most of the guys head down to a communal shower area in the powerhouse where there is 24-hour unlimited hot water available.
(3) Eating the yummy yummy food - stir-fy things, often very salty, containing crunchy mushrooms and all sorts of stuff that is strange - and no-one drinks the tap water here; when you are thirsty you drink coke (in cans with Chinese writing and pictures of NBA stars), beer (the brand is REEB, which is supplied to the base free coz of the kudos the company subsequently gets and can exploit in their advertising) or tea. I naively asked for a glass of water when we first arrived and they brought me a soup-cup of boiling water.
(4) The cups - large and wide like soup-cups and with a handle on either side. A brilliant design: large surface area to warm your hands on; two handles to balance with easily if the cup is too hot to hold. And when you drink you feel like your whole face is being swallowed up by the lovely warm tea, like you're diving into it.
(5) The videos they put on at meal-time - imagine a cross between Xena and Monkey Magic - beautiful princess kung-fu fights with evil emperor henchmen and pink rays expand out of her as she flies through the air with regular close-ups of posed facial expressions or unfathomably long fingernails. Fighting guys poke out each others' eyes with their fingers and tomato sauce runs down their faces. Unsubtle music played on Chinese drums and flutes. Sages with eyebrows that are swept back and become part of their hairdos.
(6) I think I am the only girl within at least a hundred kilometres.

Next post: hiking in the Larsemann Hills - strange Russian junk at Progress II - almost but not quite getting to Progress I - roadside mailbox and Barbarella-style interiors at Law Base - first sense of actual dusk and dawn - sleep? noooo - and more dodgey Chinese karaoke videos - oh yes and actual work.