About to vanish for two weeks

I don't. I've lost two in the last 3 months.

There are something like 130 of them around here - I can usually find 110 or so.

Any access to snowmobiles around that area Don? Looks like a place where you can have lots of fun snowmobiling.

I've not seen a snowmobile round there in years. No idea why...

Good luck, Don. Have a great trip!

Don your biggest dilemma will be which torches to take.

Enjoy yourself.

By the time you get back, I will have passed the 4000 posts mark.

Only another 3560 posts to do. Life is hard.

Great house Don! Have a great holiday!

Now trying to find a real dog sled. I know where to get one in New Zealand - there's a guy there whose living is building them for Antarctic expeditions wood still works better than anything else for this purpose - but it is rather a long way from here to go for a sledge.

And your assistant will be pulling you around in this dog sled? Laughing

Have a nice vacation Don, and don't forget to bring plenty of spare cells! : )

Probably just using her (or was it him?) to haul the torches :)

He might be out of a job now - the last dogs were taken out of Antarctica in 1994, (fear of disease getting into the wildlife etc.)

Anyway, looks like a great spot you're going (gone?) to - have fun!

Cheers

I could see the spot from the throwers’ beams at 250m. The camera couldn’t. Hit the noise floor of the sensor. Time for thinking. Found a data signal in Tomintoul, about 16km from here across some rather large hills. Time to get back to the assistant.

Heh, reminds me of the old Monty Python joke about making love in canoes. ;)

Hope you have a great vacation!

Paint me green! Looks like an idyllic winter country scene. And the wonderful thought of being out of reach of a cellular signal...

Enjoy it out there Don! Thanks for checking in.

Enjoy the beautifull scenery there. :)

I did!

Amazingly peaceful - the loudest noise was the ticking of the 150 year old clock. Except the day the Air Force decided to come charging down the glen at very low altitude - probably around 75m (Which is as low as they are allowed to play in peacetime) which means the pilots were looking up at the hills around.

Pics to follow once I get the car unloaded.

Looking forward to the pics!

My back is hurting - got carried away with wood chopping - not looking forward to unpacking the car and seeing which bit of the exhaust is broken - a road car with around 50mm of ground clearance is not optimal for the track I had to drive up.

Not a lot of snow around - to my surprise and to the disgust of the ski centre a few kilometres away. On Saturday it hit 15oC which it almost never does even in summer.

Didn't know about dogs in Antarctica - I learn something new every day.

He'd be long retired now - he'd emigrated to NZ in the 1940's when there was no work at all in Shetland.

I met him at a funeral which I was conducting in the late 80's.

That funeral was memorable for all sorts of reasons - the biggest being that the cemetery was 4 miles from any road. I looked at the mourners and wondered how many of them would survive carrying the coffin the 4 miles to the cemetery.

But they'd thought of that and there was a tractor and trailer to carry the coffin.

Didn't it break down a couple of miles from anywhere.

From then on, things degenerated.

Keeping a straight face was tricky.

Glad to have you back, Don....and I'm anxiously awaiting the photos!