Can't afford a boat trip to the Antarctic? Try this instead!

This is the view today from the bow webcam on the Aurora Australis, the resupply vessel that services Australia's Antarctic bases.

Not your average cruise ship view! Not your average webcam view either…

The ship left Australia on 15 October, and was slated to return on 16 November. The latest sitrep has them here (and it is so worth your time to zoom in and look around the shoreline on this map!):

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The report from the crew is not too encouraging:

Heading: 220
Current speed: 1.9 (knots)
Distance in last 24 hours: 75 (nautical miles)
Distance to next waypoint: 220 to Davis (nautical miles)
Weather conditions: high cloud cover, fresh breeze
Air temperature: -11.1 (degrees Celsius)
Sea temperature: -1.84 (degrees Celsius)
Sea conditions: flat
Ice conditions: Heavy ice 9/10
Remarks: Early afternoon yesterday our progress was stopped due to heavy ice conditions making further travel on our set course risky in terms of getting locked into the ice. We remained stationary whilst the Basler aircraft from Davis completed the ice reconnaissance yesterday afternoon and indicated that ice conditions were easier further east toward 76E longitude. Yesterday evening we changed course to move to this new approach position into Davis but had to travel north initially to avoid heavier ice conditions. Over the last 3 days we have fundamentally moved on a 200Nm radius around Davis seeking leads through the ice without success. This afternoon it is planned to conduct ice reconnaissance with the helicopters we have on board. This is a well planned operation involving ice pilots from the Aurora Australis in separate helicopters assessing the condition and concentration of the ice floes on the optional routes we have identified into Davis from our present position. We are hoping for some good news. Despite these setbacks the team of expeditioners on board remain upbeat.

The view from the stern webcam is not very encouraging either:

But the port (left) cam view is spectacular:

On antarctica.gov.au you can view the ship's webcams and a timelapse of the voyage to date.

Don't you just love this sort of technology?