The weather during the rest of October and for the first weeks of November took on a phase of heavy snowfalls which we knew were inevitable before summer could be really established. The winds were very often in the "eighties" and every four or five days a calm might be expected.
The penguins had a tempestuous time building their nests, and resuming once more the quaint routine of their rookery life. In the hurricanes they usually ceased work and crouched behind rocks until the worst was over. A great number of birds were observed to have small wounds on the body which had bled and discoloured their feathers. In one case a penguin had escaped, presumably from a sea-leopard, with several serious wounds, and had staggered up to a rookery, dying there from loss of blood. Almost immediately the frozen carcase was mutilated and torn by skua gulls.
On October 31 the good news was received that the 'Aurora' would leave Australia on November 15. There were a great number of things to be packed, including the lathe, the motor and dynamos, the air-tractor engine, the wireless "set" and magnetic and meteorological instruments. Outside the Hut, many cases of kerosene and provisions, which might be required for the Ship, had been buried to a depth of twelve feet in places during the southeast hurricane in September. So we set to work in great spirits to prepare for the future.
McLean was busy collecting biological specimens, managing to secure a large number of parasites from penguins, skua gulls, giant petrels, snow petrels, Wilson petrels, seals and an Emperor penguin, which came up on the harbour-ice. On several beautiful days, with a sea-breeze wafting in from the north, large purple and brown jelly-fish came floating to the ice-foot. Many were caught in a hand-net and preserved in formalin. In his shooting excursions McLean happened on a small rocky ravine to the east where, hovering among nests of snow and Wilson petrels, a small bluish-grey bird,* not unlike Prion Banksii, was discovered. Four specimens were shot, and, later, several old nests were found containing the unhatched eggs of previous years.
** On arrival in Australia this bird proved to be new to science.
On the highest point of Azimuth Hill, overlooking the sea, a Memorial Cross was raised to our two lost comrades.
A calm evening in November! At ten o'clock a natural picture in shining colours is painted on the canvas of sea and sky. The northern dome is a blush of rose deepening to a warm terra-cotta along the horizon, and the water reflects it upward to the gaze. Tiny Wilson petrels flit by like swallows; seals shove their dark forms above the placid surface; the shore is lined with penguins squatting in grotesque repose. The south is pallid with light—the circling sun. Adelie Land is at peace!
For some time Madigan, Hodgeman and I had been prepared to set out on a short sledging journey to visit Mount Murchison and to recover if possible the instruments cached by the Eastern Coastal and the Southern Parties. It was not until November 23 that the weather "broke" definitely, and we started up the old glacier "trail" assisted by a good team of dogs.
Aladdin's Cave was much the same as we had left it in the previous February, except that a fine crop of delicate ice-crystals had formed on its walls. We carried with us a small home-made wireless receiving set, and arrangements were made with Bickerton and Bage to call at certain hours. As an "aerial" a couple of lengths of copper wire were run out on the surface of the ice. At the first "call" Madigan heard the signals strongly and distinctly, but beyond five and a half miles nothing more was received.
Resuming the journey on the following day, we made a direct course for Madigan Nunatak and then steered southeast for Mount Murchison, pitching camp at its summit on the night of November 28.