Midwinter Madness

Midwinters, as far as I'm aware, is commonly considered a pagan celebration for... um, something. There's probably dancing and mild nudity with a bit of fire thrown in for good measure and maybe something about rebirth of the sun. Anyway, down here the Midwinter celebrations mark the middle of our 12 month posting and essentially act as a bit of Christmas within the wintering crew where we have a too much food and argue with each other give each other presents.

Another tradition is a swim where a hole is cut in the ice and we jump in one at a time for a dip in the lovely cool water. The look on some people's face will make you think that the water is a little on the frigid side where perhaps they'll need to do a little searching later for some special appendages, but that is a lie! Just look at me swimming like a duck having a bath. Unfortunately we had to wait a few days for the wind to calm down so that we wouldn't freeze as soon as we got out of the water, but we still had to move quickly to get our footwear off before the shoe laces froze in place.

Enough rambling, here are some photos of food, our decorations and mostly nude men.

Flags of the world and, as usual, Michael eating.

Wilfred made an appearance and a very funny speech

We each gave each other a present, inside this pretty wrapper was a book of amazing photos taken around Tasmania

One of 3 desserts for the evening, a Troll Doll... Or, panncotta with Turkish style fairy floss.

Aaron was moving quickly to get dry

Ben H enjoyed his dip

The hole. Would you be willing to jump in there?

"Splish splash, I was taking a bath"

Matty had 2 goes. Yes people, there's someone nuttier than me down here.