I thought I had written this post but for some reason I didn’t… with the start of winter and longer days a resurgence off aurora photos are starting to appear on the Antarctic Facebook pages.  Of all the amazing experiences that I had in Antartica watching an aurora dance across the sky was one of those special experiences that I will always remember.

I was a teenager I first saw aurora australis on the horizon in Hobart, Tasmania.  At the time I was unaware of what a miracle it was to see an aurora with the naked eye from Australia but seeing that aurora filled me with a life long desire to stand under an aurora looking up at it.

When I first visited Antarctica in 2015 it was summer and there was 22 hours of light a day, no chance of seeing an aurora.  The second time I visited in 2016 I was anxious for the days to start to shorten so that we could see the first aurora dance across the sky.

Then one night while we were in the bar a call went out “Aurora!” we all quickly put on warm clothes and rushed out the front door.  There she was high above us, darting across the sky.  Dancing and swirling, bright greens streaking across the sky, subtle pinks and purples glimmering at the edges.  Energy was cracking across the sky like a whip, it felt like a great thunderous storm should have been rattling the windows but the silence was deafening, a silent storm. For what seemed like hours we stood staring up at the sky, watching the colors moving and shifting.

After this first storm, I was hooked and every couple of weeks when the skies were clear and Lady Aurora was dancing you would find me outside trying to get the perfect photo. Harder then it sounds when it was between -20 and -40, the tripod would start to fail as the oil in the bearings froze, the camera lens would stop focusing and my finger tips would freeze to the release button.  It was a moment of isolation, aloneness with the world.  Although there was usually a couple of us out and about taking photos on good nights, we kept clear of each other just enjoying the experience of total immersion in the Universe.

The final aurora that I watched was the most amazing storm, I could actually hear crackles and pops as the light slashed across the sky.