Joyce left the Bluff depot on December 29, and the parties were together two days later.  Mackintosh handed Joyce instructions to proceed with his party to lat. 81° S and place a depot there.  He was then to send three men back to Hut Point and proceed to lat. 82° S., where he would lay another depot.  Then if provisions permitted he would push south as far as lat. 83°.  Mackintosh himself was reinforcing the depot at lat. 80° S. and would then carry on southward.  Apparently his instructions to Joyce were intended to guard against the contingency of the parties failing to meet.  The dogs were hauling well, and though their number was small they were of very great assistance.  The parties were now ninety days out from Cape Evans, and “all hands were feeling fit.”

The next incident of importance was the appearance of a defect in one of the two Primus lamps used by Joyce’s party.  The lamps had all seen service with one or other of Captain Scott’s parties, and they had not been in first-class condition when the sledging commenced.  The threatened failure of a lamp was a matter of grave moment, since a party could not travel without the means of melting snow and preparing hot food.  If Joyce took a faulty lamp past the 80° S. depot, his whole party might have to turn back at lat. 81° S., and this would imperil the success of the season’s sledging.  He decided, therefore, to send three men back from the 80° S. depot, which he reached on January 6, 1916.  Cope, Gaze, and Jack were the men to return.  They took the defective Primus and a light load, and by dint of hard travelling, without the aid of dogs, they reached Cape Evans on January 16.

Joyce, Richards, and Hayward went forward with a load of 1280 lbs., comprising twelve weeks’ sledging rations, dog food and depot supplies, in addition to the sledging-gear.  They built cairns at short intervals as guides to the depots.  Joyce was feeding the dogs well and giving them a hot hoosh every third night.  “It is worth it for the wonderful amount of work they are doing.  If we can keep them to 82° S. I can honestly say it is through their work we have got through.”  On January 8 Mackintosh joined Joyce, and from that point the parties, six men strong, went forward together.  They marched in thick weather during January 10, 11, and 12, keeping the course by means of cairns, with a scrap of black cloth on top of each one.  It was possible, by keeping the cairns in line behind the sledges and building new ones as old ones disappeared, to march on an approximately straight line.  On the evening of the 12th they reached lat. 81° S., and built a large cairn for the depot.  The stores left here were three weeks’ rations for the ordinary sledging unit of three men.  This quantity would provide five days’ rations for twelve men, half for the use of the overland party, and half for the depot party on its return journey.

The party moved southwards again on January 13 in bad weather.