We're on the go. Tomorrow morning Dave and I will be driving at an almost unholy hour to Dunedin - we have to be there at seven (remember, practically I'm still a student). There we and the third member of our Snares team, Melanie Massaro, will pack all of our gear into an hopefully enormous trailer before we head off towards Invercargill in the deep South of New Zealand. There we'll have to pass the Department of Conservation's quarantine checks and the safety briefing.

Now, the quarantine checks are exactly what they sound like: we have to carry all of the gear into a "quarantine chamber", where all the rodent proof containers will be opened just to make sure that there aren't any rodents inside. It's a double check for rodent proofness, so to speak. No moth, no mouse and no lice should make the mistake to be in or at any of our boxes after we've entered the chamber. Same is true for any plants, seeds or soil - it'll all be eradicated, eliminated and terminated. In short, everything organic that isn't part of the researchers' anatomy or intended for consumption will get a hard time.

Wednesday morning, 6 o'clock, we're going to haul all our gear into the Foveaux Ferry and hopefully we will then take course for the Snares. However, the long term weather forecast isn't looking too promising. There are rumours of gale force winds and snow fall abroad. And storm warnings for the Foveaux Strait can ruin our day.

Once landed on the Snares, we will first of all make ourselves a home in the hut: we will put the solar panel on the roof, we will attach the satellite antenna of our telephone right next to it, and we will lay all the wires and cables to equip our hut with the necessary electricity and computer network infrastructure. And of course we will familiarize ourselves with the penguins (although it may also be the other way round).

Apropos, "satellite antenna". We have a satellite phone on this trip. That means we will be connected to the rest of the world not only by our world receiver, but also through the amazing technology called the Internet. We will be able to check email and even to update our webpages. This brings me to the point. Now, some of you may have noticed, that this dispatch is somewhat different to all the previous ones, as it features not a single image. Well, as an internet connection at the end of the world is not only cool but also bloody expensive, I think we will have to go without too many pictures while we are on the Snares (although the odd one may appear).

However, a necessary prerequisite will be that we manage to get an internet connection up and running through the satellite phone. Such a thing can raise some problems. So, if nothing has happened to these webpages in a few weeks time, we obviously weren't able to solve these problems. Anyway, I will continue to add updates to this site on the Snares and - if push comes to shove - I will upload it all at once when we're back. So stay tuned.

And that's it for today. Write to you in a couple of days… or in mid-November.