I love life in the field. There’s nothing more wonderful than staying in a hut away from it all – especially when you look out the window and see a magnificent beach smothered in penguins and elephant seals.
There’s a variety of huts on Macca, spaced strategically around the island. The permanent Antarctic Division huts – 5 in total – are used not just by researchers and Parks and Wildlife staff, but also by station staff going out on jollies (the Antarctic way of saying ‘holiday’).
The two googie huts (one at Brothers Point and the other at Waterfall Bay) look like orange UFOs. Like all Macca huts they have a wooden cold porch attached (the cold porch is where boots, jackets, packs and surplus food are stored).
The West Coast only has one permanent hut (at Bauer Bay), there’s another at the southern tip of the island at Hurd Point next to a MASSIVE royal penguin colony.
My favourite hut of all though is the one at Green Gorge, about halfway down the eastern side of the island. It’s tucked in under a cliff at the southern end of a cobble beach. The beach is bisected by a pretty stream, and currently home to a large elephant seal harem and a growing colony of king penguins with their maturing chicks. The giant petrels and skuas are also back in large numbers, always looking for a feed of ele seal placenta or sick/dying pups and chicks. On the cliffs the sooty albatross are starting to nest.
There are a couple of outbuildings alongside Green Gorge hut. One is a toolshed and the other is called the Shangri-La. It’s a big food store, and the little sheltered porch outside of it has been modified into a bathing/showering space. A few months ago Pete constructed a bucket shower with little holes in one side of the lid. You fill the bucket with warm water, hoist it to the ceiling with a rope, and hey presto – a luxurious spray of warm water under which you can soap up and wash your hair. You need to be quick though, because the air temperatures are still a little nippy.
The other type of hut currently on Macca is the water tank hut – there’s 5 of those. They’ve been brought in especially for the Macquarie Island Pest Eradication Project.
As their name suggests, the huts are modified water tanks that have received some serious interior decoration. Their small size makes them ‘cosy’ inside, and although there are four bunks, they’re really only suitable for two people…. though it depends who you’re sharing the hut with. I stayed for three nights with Dean and Nancye in Tiobunga Hut last week and it was just fine. We left the door slightly ajar at night to stop the condensation, and this made sleeping on the top bunk much more comfortable (when the door is shut the walls weep). It still felt slightly claustrophobic (the ceiling is about 30 cm from your face), but the fine company made it all worth it.
Each watertank hut has a small cold porch, built out of the pods in which the bait and other supplies were transported for the rabbit eradication project.
Three of the huts are located on the plateau – including Tio - which is very often shrouded in mist. The big issue with the plateau huts is that there is no handy beach on which you can do your business in the morning. Instead you poop into a bag suspended on a makeshift toilet consisting of a stand and a toilet seat, then tuck the bag and its contents into a plastic poo jar that you empty at the beach when you get there. There is an art of pooing into a bag, such as adequately lining it with talcum powder first (I will now forever associate the smell of talcum powder with excrement). You also want to make sure there is no air left in the bag, because the bag might pop when you’re trying to squeeze it into the poo jar. Dana called this whole practice ‘degrading’, and Tony another one of the hunters can make himself hold his waste for up to three days at a time.
The other two water tank huts are located on the coast. The one at Davis Point on the West Coast is the most beautifully-located I reckon. It has sweeping coastline on both sides, a large lawn-like area in behind it and steep mountain-like hills rising up beyond that.
The other water tank is at Caroline Cove west of Hurd Point hut in the south. The area has a bit of an aura or taboo associated with it, because it has permanent restricted access (though I and the rest of the MIPEP team can access it for operational purposes). Caroline Cove is home to some pretty rare birds, including a small number of nesting wandering albatross. There’s a large natural amphitheatre, which houses a royal penguin colony (they hop their way along a steep creek halfway up a mountain to get there). Below the hut is a sheltered cove that’s home to gentoo penguins and more ele seals. It’s the furthest hut from station, and feels like a lost world. It’s great. Danny and I spent two days there, filming. My highlight was finding a tiny snail, no larger than 2 mm in diameter. That’s as big as that particular species gets apparently.
And that’s all I have to say about Macca field huts at the moment.
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| Green Gorge hut with Melissa and Peter |
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| Gary, Tama and Joker at Waterfall Bay hut |
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| The location of Caroline Cove hut |
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| Inside Green Gorge hut |
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| Inside Tiobunga aka Tio hut, a water tank hut |
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| Tio hut sits on the plateau |
