At 3.15pm today (Oct 1st) the first challenge will (should?) become available for you to download. You will find it on the page https://www.cipher.maths.soton.ac.uk/the-challenges-2009/challenge-1-2009?number=1, where it will appear as two graphic images (Harry ducks the missiles and tries to ignore the boos and hisses from Smaug and the dragonlettes) AS WELL AS A PDF YOU CAN DOWNLOAD! (Can I come out now?). You should download the pdf and use that as your source. The images do have a function (you can work it out for yourself) but they are not the primary source. The direct link to the pdf is Download the challenge as a pdf. This will download it to your computer where you can open it and copy the text. You might want to print it out and work with it by hand (you have plenty of time and this can be fun) or you can open it with Acrobat Reader and use the text tool to copy the text so you can process it however you want. (See https://www.ehow.com/how_11627_copy-text-pdf.html for more on this - Mac users can do the same using the built in Preview app).
The server often gets choked with the initial rush, but there is no need to panic: you have until midnight tomorrow to get full marks for Challenge 1B and until midnight next Wednesday to get full marks for Challenge 1A. If the server is too busy just leave it for a while and try again.
Good luck!
Harry