I posted this little tale a while back (when it happened) but this seems an
ideal time to tell it again.
My most memorable unicycling experience occured while riding my unicycle on the
Helli deck of the AURORA AUTRALIS, an Australian Antarctic research and resupply
ship. It was somewhere in the middle of the Southern Ocean with a dreamscape
background of huge ice-burgs and sunset colours everywhere. The ship was
experiencing a type off motion commonly known as corkscrewing (I’m sure you can
imagine what that means). This gentle corkscrew action allowed me to ride round
and round in a circle, travelling downhill the whole time! Quite a unique
experience.
On the same trip I had another first for me, though many of you I’m sure find
the situation commonplace (well allmost). I’m talking about riding in the snow.
We were sheltering from the winds in the lee of Heard Island in the Southern
Ocean. It was quite calm and large snowflakes were gently falling. The ship was
covered in about two cm of soft snow. It made the riding surface (the metal
floor of the helli deck) quite slippery so gliding with the wheel locked was
possible. Again the scenery was what made the experience so special - sitting
just a couple hundred meters from the site where a large glacier meets the sea.
A couple of seals lounging on the ice and penguins darting and Porpoising
through the water.
Mark
Mark Sands o o o E-mail M.R.Sands@iasos.utas.edu.au o o IASOS/CRC Ph: +61 20
2941 Fax: +61 20 2973 ------------------------------------------------ o
Institute of Antarctic and Southern Ocean Studies o @_/ CRC for Antarctic and
Southern Ocean Environment /|
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