Field Training

Everyone on Macquarie Island must undergo field training, which largely consists of familiarization with the island and the hut system.  The island is equipped with five field huts, each with heat, electricity, water, sleeping gear, a kitchen and stocked with food.  It's set up to support field research by biologists, geologists, etc., and for the park rangers (Macquarie Island is part of Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife).

On this map you can see the location of the station at the North end of the island.  There are huts at Brother Point, Green Gorge, and Waterfall Bay on the East coast, Hurd Point at the Southern end of the island, and Bauer Bay on the West coast.  Four of us (Tim, Susan, Sharyn, and myself) did a quick overnight to Bauer Bay for field training.

Here are a few photos of the trip:

Almost all hikes start with a climb to the plateau.  This is Gadget Gully - a short but brisk climb.

Then it's on to one of the plateau tracks.  This is the Island Lake Track.  It's a good trail, muddy and boggy in places.  The wind can howl.  This day it was ripping, making it difficult to stay on your feet at times, and sandblasting exposed skin at others.

This lovely spot is Island Lake.  The track crosses the isthmus.

Here is the view coming down the hill to Bauer Bay.  The next photo is from nearly the same point on the trail, but taken five years ago when I was here last.  Althought the aspect is a bit different, if you look at the ground cover, the devastation caused by rabbits in the past few years is striking.  The area used to be fairly lush (more than the photo shows just a little further down the track).  Today it is pretty much denuded, covered mainly my bare soil and closely cropped annual bluegrass (an invasive) and pleurophyllum.  

The rabbits were introduced long ago, but the population has exploded since cats were eradicated around 2002.  A rabbit eradication program will start next year.  

Here is the Bauer Bay hut.

Some of the wildlife around the hut:  elephant seals, royal penguins, and a fungus (scutellinia scutellata, I think - can anyone help me out here?).  I'm particularly fond of the fungus photo.

The next day, back to the station.

Work!

The reason we're on Macquarie Island is to begin remediating petroleum-contaminated soil.  As in every other place where people have handled fuel, there have been some spills on Macquarie Island.  Soil around the fuel farm, which stores the Island's supply of Special Antarctic Blend (a light deisel) is contaminated.

The tanks are now contained in a substantial enclosure, but historic spills have contaminated the soil around the fuel farm.

The Main Power House, which houses the generator that supplies power to the station, is also the site of spills.

The soil on the side of the Main Power House is in a little wetland.  This poses particular remediation challanges because aerobic respiration is limited by lack of oxygen here.  Our basic approach to remediating Macquarie soils is to make the environment as favorable as possible for soil microbes that oxidize petroleum to carbon dioxide.  Limiting factors are generally lack of nitrogen and/or oxygen.

Last year's crew installed a number of sampling ports (thanks, Andrew et al!).  Here's #5.

Under the cover are either a tube sunk into the soil that is slotted at the bottom to allow water to enter (and which we can later collect), or

sampling ports to allow water to be withdrawn, oxygen sensors, and temperature sensors.

We're now collecting baseline data prior to starting remediation activities.

The weekend!

Saturday January 17th was sunny and beautiful.  Here's a view of the station from Telegraph Hill, just to the North of the station.  There are about three dozen people here for the summer, a few working off-station at any given time.  Later in the day we hiked to Hand Spike, on the West coast.

This sooty albatross was waiting for us at the top of the hill.

The pleurophyllym hookeri is in bloom.

Sunday was also beautiful (two days in a row of good weather are not a common occurrence on Macquarie.  We hiked down the East coast to the Nuggets (the large pointed rocks sticking out the ocean).

At the Nuggets there's a huge Royal penguin colony.  Here are a few of the little guys up close. The colony has many, many thousands of penguins.

Ian, decked out in his sunnies and beanie (a warm day on Macquarie is still brisk).

Lastly, a few King penguins enjoying the nice weather.

The voyage

Today (Thursday January 15) we arrived on Macquarie Island!  We departed from Invercargill, NZ on Monday January 12 aboard the MV Orion.  Here's a photo of her at dock.

On Tuesday, we had a quick Zodiak trip to the shores of Enderby Island, without a landing.

We saw, among other things, lots of sea lions, and this rare yellow-eyed penguin (if you look closely, you  can see his yellow eyes).

Later in the afternoon, we had a landing on nearby Auckland Island.  As you can see, there is some large woody vegetation on Auckland.

Here's a tree that was carved by sailors in 1845 (I think that's the date carved into it) pointing the way to stores left for shipwrecked sailors.  

The Orion is a beautiful ship, and we were treated very well, but all were very happy to get off and start working on Macquarie.  Next time:  photos of Maquarie.

Invercargill

We're off! We flew to Invercargill, at the Southern tip of New Zealand yesterday. We catch the Orion to Macquarie Island on January 12.

Earlier in the week we had a get together of the whole group going to Macquarie.

Ian, myself, Ben, and Greg (Greg's not going along this time)

Claire and Tim. 

Ian, Ben, Tim, and I are traveling on the Orion.


Sharon, Tom, Josie, Claire.


Susan, Brett, and Ian.

Susan, Brett, Sharon, Tom, Josie, and Claire should now be at sea on the Marina Svetaeva. They were delayed a day but hopefully are on their way.

Here are a couple of photos of Invercargill. 

The Railway Hotel where we're staying.

The Invercargill town hall.

Sailing

We spent a couple of days sailing before New Year's on John's boat - the "Not Negotiable'.   We (John, Ian, Antonia, and myself) sailed south to Randall's Bay, where we spent the night.  In the morning we proceeded to Cygnet where we met up with some friends for lunch, then back to Kettering.