And when I listen closely I am so sure I can hear the whistling of freezing gale-force winds cutting through the lines and wires.
By all accounts Antarctica, when the days are a clement -12C or so and the whistling winds are no more than a light zephyr, is a most beautiful, serene and self-reflective place which is capable of bringing out the philosopher and romanticist in the hardiest of souls.
I have read the tales of people who have travelled that far south and settled for a time in comfortable lodgings upon the ice and all have been written with pens filled not with ink but with awe.
And fair enough, for it's not exactly the terrain one is accustomed to, although some of the high country folk in the western and northern regions of the Bay had a recent taste of what it is like to venture 3750km southwards.
Although they had the one factor which those holed up down there did not have.
They had sunlight.
For when the "summer" of the south concludes there is no sunrise for about five or six months.
I'm not sure of the exact time frame but it's more than 12 or so hours, put it that way.
But then of course when it does finally begin to rise (a process which takes about three weeks) it stays up there.
No sunsets on the agenda for another five or six months.
Just long and light days, albeit sun-filled days where one need not chill the tinnies whilst outside at a picnic.
What a strange and to me, unsettling scenario.
I can recall being up in Norway back in '77 and its location allowed me and a crazy group of fellow Kiwi and Aussie (imbibers) to have a loud game of soccer after a 10.45pm kick-off.
It was like playing in a summer back home at 7.45pm.
Weird. As was the fire we started and the subsequent arrival of the Norwegian plod but we won't go there.
And so it came to pass last week that the sun began to light the Antarctic horizon for it was edging back into the orbiting frame.
And when the first sharp beams actually did appear there were celebrations centred on the return of summertime ... still distant but the evidence it was displaying filled the dark sky and sparkled up the freezing white landscape.
So okay, it's hovering around -52C but hey, the sun is coming out.
That, to me, is more a portent of the warmer climes to come than the blossom blazing along many Bay streets, and the emerging freesia and daffodils.
Now when it warms up to only -20C or so the crew down there at Scott Base, on the southern end of the great Ross Island ice shelf thing, will get the barbies and the string tennis sets out and they will raise warmed glasses of mead to the distant sun and wonder how the hell they got through six months of darkness and being effectively confined to quarters.
So I was a little intrigued to discover recently how the 11-member winter team down there on scientific and environmental research over the long and endlessly dark winter used their time, and how they entertained themselves.
Well, they created a one-eyed weasel called Buck and a sloth called Sid.
And they made a film about them and they are going to make some more because they show kids in the real world 1350km to the north what it is like outside down there in winter.
It must be like being in your room at 2 in the morning during a power cut - for six months.
These snowbound creatures have wonderful adventures, and I've seem some footage of what the creative film-maker chap down there came up with and yes, it is an imaginative way to combat cabin fever.
Not for much longer though, for the sun has returned and will stay in the sky until next April or May.
What a strange old world this is.
- Roger Moroney is an award-winning journalist for Hawke's Bay Today and observer of the slightly off-centre.
