Today marked the end of our first spell at Mukhrino Field Station, this morning we packed up all our kit and samples and had lunch before walking down to the river with our bags. During our 8 days at Mukhrino field station we have had some rain but lots of warm weather and the river level has fallen considerably. We had an extra walk to the boat of about 500m as that was as far up-river as the boat could make it and it was pretty cool to see the height difference in the river. As there were eight people leaving Mukhrino today to go back to Shapsha field station on the other side of Khanty-Mansiyk, the speedboat had to do three trips to fit us all and out luggage!
This is the boat pick-up point near Mukrhino (about 500m) where we left from – with the low river!
All of us leaving Mukhrino, after carrying our (large amount of) luggage to the boat pick-up point. From left: Mark, Joss, Roxane, Angela, Richard and Paul. The tough guys are on the left – no mosquito nets!
The boat trip back to Khanty-Mansiyk was great we were flying along with a really nice breeze to blow away all the mosquitoes! We had a few good sightings of a white tailed eagle also. I was amazed at how big this bird was but unfortunately my camera had gone in an earlier boat! We then got a minibus back to Shapsha and all had a really good dinner together, with some Russian cakes for dessert which were great – pretty much like scones!
Arctic Research 