Darkness is coming to an end.

 

A few weeks ago a couple of us headed up to Vals and bivvied on top of Reptile ridge for the night. It was -20 degrees Celsius. Sleeping outside with just a thermarest, sheep's skin and a down sleeping bag inside a bivvy bag was pretty exciting. With the spot lights that surround the buildings of Rothera it was great to get away from the small amount of light pollution that we create and really embrace the Antarctic fresh air. The stars were incredible and we regularly saw shooting stars. 

 

 

 We had some food at the caboose before heading up to our camp for the night.

 The darkness that surrounded us for the past few months gave us great opportunity to take night time photography. I've learnt so much about photography whilst I've been here and can't wait to get home and invest in some more kit.

 Ali Rose is a great photographer and has been giving us all tips on our photography skills.

 A 30 minute exposure.

 It was absolutely freezing the night I took this photo on my winter trip with Al, it must have been around -30. It was difficult to mess around with the camera settings so the best shot I got is the one below...!

With only 5 weeks until the first Borek aircraft arrives back at Rothera which marks the end of our winter! I can't believe how fast time has gone, we've all got so many winter jobs that we've got to finish in the next few weeks before Rothera opens up for the summer.

 

With the flag up ceremony just a few weeks ago the light is coming back very quickly. It's now light before work which is amazing so we can go out diving and sampling at 9 am now instead of waiting until a few hours later when it got light. The other exciting thing is that twilight hours are now after work time so as of last week we can play outside after work!!!!! A few of us have been skiing and snowboarding on the ramp behind base a few times after work this week just because we can...it was pretty tough conditions as we have hardly had any snow this winter so the ramp is pretty icy!

  

Soon the 21 of us will be invaded by the summer people of Rothera...exciting and slightly scary!