Henry's Igloo

Journal - June 2001 - pg 5

June 18th - 24th

Midwinter and Beyond..

Preparations for the midwinter celebrations continued at a hectic pace during the week.

A couple of weeks ago it was decided that we should have a tug of war at noon of the 20th, the day before mid winter, just to get things going for the celebrations. The two teams consisted of tradies vs the rest. The rest was made up of boffins (scientists), met team, comms, doc, and station leader. The stakes for the challenge - antarctic currency (hair), facial hair and head hair of course. Gary from met was so confident we would win he put up his prized beard which he has so nurtured since departing Australia.

So on noon of the 20th it was on, with everyone psyched up the entire station population was soon in a mighty battle of strength. For what seemed an eternity (minutes) the flag on the rope moved ever so slightly from one side to the other, for a while it was moving slowly more towards our (the others) side, our voices were beginning to get hoarse from shouting, our legs were starting to feel the pain, our hands were beginning to cramp around the rope, then our feet started to give way in the snow and slowly but surely we lost our footing and began to slide towards the tradies. Our anchor man Paul then toppled over as he struggled to keep us from sliding away.

Well it was over and to our dismay the tradies won, but it was a great battle, a true sporting moment, we all congratulated each other and so the midwinter celebrations had begun.

We prepare for mighty Tug of War.
On the left: Tradies - Don (anchor man), Mike, Pete, Jonno, Critter, Cam, E-man, Stu.
On the right: Others - Paul (anchor man), Allan, Greg, AB, Henry, Roland, Gary, Vic.

That night it was time to pay our dues....


Cam collects the debt....	and Gary pays up!


I opted for the....	...fuzz look!!


AB and his new "chrome dome"	Roland goes for the "half polish"


Vic doesn't want to pay up..	Paul is happy with his new look...

More to come....

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