The party and their stores were put ashore on the beach which the “Southern Cross” Expedition had chosen, for want of a better spot where their stuff could be set safely on land.  Loose ice and surf hampered operations, for owing to shallow water, boats had to convey hut, gear, and equipment from the ship instead of sledges taking it over fast ice, as was the case at Cape Evans.  It was truly a case of bundling Campbell and Co. out of the ship, and only their great optimism and bonhomie kept this party from despair.  As it turned out they had some of the best of the Expedition game, since neither disaster nor terrific disappointment dogged their steps as in Scott’s case, for up till the very last they were in blissful ignorance of our dreadful plight in the main party.

The old huts left by Borchgrevink in 1900 were much dilapidated:  one snowed up inside, and the other roofless and full of penguin guano.  The snow was all removed from the snow-choked hut, and this shack used as a temporary shelter during the building of the Chateau Campbell.  The work of landing stores from the “Terra Nova” was accomplished in two days, and the ship, after tooting a farewell to the little party on her siren, steamed away and left them to their own devices.

The Cape Adare locality is a famous penguin rookery, and Campbell’s men might for all the world have been erecting their hut on Hampstead Heath during a Bank Holiday, for the penguins gathered in their thousands around them in a cawing, squawking crowd.

Penguins are the true inhabitants of Antarctica, and have flourished for countless ages in these parts.  Surgeon Levick, Campbell’s doctor, has written a splendid little book entitled “Antarctic Penguins” (Heinemann), which tells all about the little beggars in popular language.  The members landed with Lieutenant Victor Campbell were: 

Levick  .  .  .   Surgeon and Zoologist. 
Priestley  .  .   Geologist. 
Abbott  .  .  .   Seaman. 
Browning   .  .   Seaman. 
Dickason   .  .   Seaman.

The three seamen were chosen by Campbell after careful observation on the outward voyage.

The Northern Party Hut was completed and first inhabited by March 5.  An ice house for the storage of fresh meat was constructed, or rather hollowed out of an iceberg grounded close to.  Unfortunately, this had to be evacuated owing to a surf causing the berg to disintegrate, and V Campbell puts it, “we had only just time to rescue the forty penguins with which we had stocked it, and carry the little corpses to a near ice-house built of empty cases filled with ice.”

To appreciate best the surrounding hereabouts one may as well give a brief description of the Cape Adare and Robertson Bay environment.  The place on which the hut was built is a small triangular beach cut off from the mainland by inaccessible cliffs.  A fine bay, containing an area of perhaps nine hundred square miles, lies to the westward, and south and behind this the Admiralty Range of Mountains rises in snowy splendour to heights of 10,000 feet or more; other ranges are visible far to the westward, whilst black basalt rocks overhang the station.