I managed to squeeze in one last field trip before they closed off any more field travel for the rest of our season. So now I have been lucky enough to been to all the huts reachable here at Mawson. Hendo was the last one, Myself, Hamish and Adam got out there for a Thursday night trip as the weather was looking pretty bad over the weekend. we knocked off early, got packed and headed off and made pretty good time only taking about an hour to get out there. Hamish had a very important chippie job of installing a step to the deck of the hut so he got stuck into that as Adam and I got the hut set up, drinks chilled and then shouted very unhelpful advice to Hamish as the job turned out to be not quite as easy as originally planned. But he got there in the end and we were all able to sit back and enjoy the amazing view, with some music playing and barely a breath of wind it turned out to be a perfect afternoon. We took a short walk up on top of a nearby ridgeline to get an even better view of the surrounds before retiring back to the hut where we cooked dinner and even watched a movie on my laptop. The next day we packed up the hut and made our way back to station one final time and tried to take in as much of the plateau as we could and said goodbye to it all.
Now confined to station and resupply preparations are in full swing with everything set up as best we can for both over water and helicopter operations depending on whether or not the ship can get through the pack ice to do a full resupply to station. Over the last week we have had some pretty heavy weather and most of the ice has actually broken out to the horizon possibly making it more likely the ship will make it through ok. We have tidied up the station as best as we can to hand over to the new crew and are looking forward to some fresh faces and energy coming ashore soon. The ship is currently finishing off operations over at Davis and we are expecting to hear they will pack up and start heading over here within the next few days. Provided they can get through the pack ice the journey from Davis to here should take 2 to 3 days.
So, that’s it. It’s almost all over. We sit now in our last weekend before resupply just waiting for word that the MPV Everest is on its way to get us. This having been my first season south, what an incredible year it has been. The hardest question to answer is when people back home ask, “What’s been the best bit?”
How do you answer that?
From the very beginning, literally when the Aurora Australis left the dock in Hobart and started its journey down the Derwent I have been bombarded with these completely unique and incredible experiences that have absolutely no comparable measure to them. Once having passed 60⁰ South and we caught sight of our first ice bergs, us first timers lost our minds getting excited over seeing and trying to get photographs of these tiny little bergs way WAAYYY off in the distance and the more seasoned expeditioners laughed at our energy as they couldn’t care less. Once much closer to the continent and as we were starting to push through more pack ice, still one of my favourite memories of the voyage was standing at the bow of the ship, steadily pushing its way through the ice. It was a very low vis day but also really low wind and we were getting this really nice dusting of snow. Big fat but gentle snow and even the ships engines seemed to be muffled by the incredible whiteness that completely surrounded us creating a very surreal atmosphere.
Once actually on the continent itself and having got through resupply and all the craziness involved with that, there is finally an opportunity to look out the window and start to register where you are. ‘Holy shit . . . . . . I’m in Antarctica . . . . . that’s Antarctica out there’ as I stare out the mess windows looking at the jagged ice cliffs around station pushing out to sea. Then only a couple weeks later I try to look out that very same window and it is completely blocked out by snow, just thick blowing snow stopping me even catching sight of the ground only meters from the window. The winds smashing into the red shed causing the whole building to shake and vibrate similar to steady air plane turbulence.
Field training changed my perception once again as we rode quads up the steady rise behind station and up on to the plateau, finally getting a better view of the surrounding mountains and just an endless, almost unfathomable amount of ice. Then spending my first night out in a bivvy bag, it was -21⁰, clear skies and an Aurora visible above as I peered out of my bag, Rumdoodle mountain silhouetted by the moon about to rise up from behind it. To be fare the next morning after a blissful 45 minutes of sleep and the condensation from my breath having frozen and now snowing back down on my face inside the bivvy bag I wasn’t feeling overly chuffed with my life decisions, but now looking back on it all, it’s all part of a wonderful experience.
Having said that, I’m sure telling some stories to people back home wouldn’t make it sound like that much fun. Especially things like that during the middle of winter and having spent enough time outside that not only I built up little icicles on my eyelashes, but I blinked and they then froze together, I literally couldn’t open my eyes until I could wipe the ice from my face. Or after returning from a full day quad trip on sea ice, underneath my neck buff I was using to cover my face, enough condensation had built up and then refrozen that my beard was now frozen to my neck buff and I had to run my neck under a hot tap to melt the ice to be able to get it off.
The opportunity to travel on sea ice was well worth it though, especially on quads. The trips out we have done have been incredible and being lucky enough to go out as far as Ledingham and spending a week and a half out in the field all at once was fantastic. All of the huts are a great get away and have their own character, situated near some incredible natural features. Whether its wind scours, melt lakes, islands, mountains, glaciers, rookeries or even ice bergs that have been trapped for who knows how long that you can walk between. That’s the thing about this place, it has this amazing vast nothingness about it, but you can’t take your eyes off it. People expect that you would get sick of the lack of colour, but the colour contrast down here is insane and it constantly changes with the seasons. Prior to winter the sun follows the horizon and gives off these unbelievable day-long sunrise/sunsets. Even the colour of the ice is dynamic, on a clear day with full sun, the blue ice and snow look pretty similar but then when the sky becomes overcast the blue ice truly turns a much brighter neon blue changing the contrast of how you see features like ice cliff and glaciers.
Then there’s the wildlife. I don’t think there is anywhere else in the world you can be amongst animals like this. Pretty much everywhere else animals have been forced to adapt around us and either see us as food source or a threat. Here we are neither. Here we are the guests. This makes visiting the emperor penguins especially special because they will come right up to us, literally an arm’s reach away at times. Not because they are looking for food or trying to protect their territory, they’re just as curious about us as we are of them and at places like Auster rookery we are just sitting there, on sea ice, amongst these giant, towering ice bergs and surrounded by an iconic animal in its natural habitat. So few people will ever get to experience that, and just that statement alone sums up life down here.
Ultimately, it’s the people we share all this with that make an already incredible experience even more so. 19 people with different professions, coming from different walks of life, squeezed together in one large red building in the middle of nowhere for a year. It definitely hasn’t been a perfect community of love and harmony, but given the length of time we are together living out of each other’s pockets and horror stories I have heard of past wintering crews, I think we have been extremely lucky. We have continued to exist and work together in a really great way and even after all this time we still enjoy just doing the basics together and the fun we have really makes the experience. You can’t leave a meal or desert or tea/coffee anywhere with out expecting it to go missing by the time you turn around. You can’t leave your phone anywhere without finding selfies of everyone else except you on it later. You can’t leave your drink unattended at the bar without having it laced with tabasco. You can’t slip up talking on the radio or anything really without being gently reminded of it for the rest of the season. The creativity and generosity of these people is incredible, it is amazing the talents people hide and it has been my genuine pleasure getting to know everyone of these fantastic people. Even just a summary like this doesn’t quite paint the full picture, there is so much more that could be added but I think its pretty easy to see how there is no ‘best bit’. Leaving will be bitter/sweet and I have no problem admitting I get a little emotional thinking about leaving this place behind. It certainly has been one of the best experiences of my life and feel extremely lucky to have been a part of it. All going well, my next update will be on the ship as I begin the journey home. So, thank you to everyone who has followed along with this experience and shown an interest in my little adventure. See you soon
Guy's Antarctica Adventure 2020 
Great post, Guy. Enjoy the tail end of your amazing journey x
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