G’day Everyone, So we are in the thick of winter now and have passed the winter solstice. The sun went down on the 12th of June for the last time and we all celebrated by heading up to the top of the station (Cos-ray Hill) and enjoyed some champagne and cheese as we watched the sun set. The sun is due to return in about a week making up a total of around two and a half weeks without seeing the sun, although it is not total darkness through this time as we still get a few hours of slight natural light each day, the sun just doesn’t rise.

Midwinter is a very special time of year down here in Antarctica – the sun is gone, the sky is slightly light enough to see for a few hours a day but the group of people you share this experience with band together to turn this all into one of the most enjoyable times of our season. Leading up to Midwinters we cut out the hole for our ice swim just a few meters off the wharf in Horse Shoe Harbour. The ice is over a meter thick therefore took the best part of the day to drill and chainsaw our way through and clear a space for our swim. Each day from there we had to go back and break up and clear away the ice that had reformed over night to maintain our swimming pool. Thursday was our day! This being my first trip down south I had been looking forward to going for a swim since I put my job application in, though that didn’t stop the nerves kicking in. Thankfully as we all sat around the table in the mess before heading down to the wharf I could see other newbies like myself looking around thinking “What am I in for here?” and veterans showing signs of “Why the hell am I doing this again?

As a group we all wondered down to the wharf and got set up, we had a roster for the order we would go in so those up first went into the wharf hut to change into their swimming gear and prepare themselves. The rest of us found a good vantage point to enjoy the reactions of our comrades. Then one by one each person made the 30 meter walk from the wharf hut down to the ice hole, got their harness hooked up and then climbed into the crystal clear blue water. 

And then in most cases got back out very quickly.

I still remember the stages my brain went through:

-ok in we go

-oh. . . . actually this isn’t too bad

-I’m Swimming!

-Actually this is getting pretty cold

-Nope! Get me out!

Though the worst part was actually being out of the water since the air temp was a nice brisk -20 and the water temp was only -1.8. The walk back to the hut was done a lot quicker and a lot less confidently than the walk down.

During the pack up though we had a little visitor – a seal popped its head up curious of all the commotion and watched us pack away our ladder, swimming flags and pile all of our gear back into a nearby hagg before making our way back to the red shed for a shower.

That night we all met up at the bar for a few celebratory drinks and watched the footage we took of all our swims. Some peoples reactions we worthy of watching several times over.

The next day everyone met up in the workshop for a barbeque. All the machines had been cleared out and even the floors washed. Dave had done an unreal job of cleaning the floors. I was surprised to find its original colour was white! We had made a makeshift bar duly named ‘The Take 5 Bar’. Whilst I staffed the bar Shane cooked the barbeque. Everyone else sat about the workshop still buzzing from the event the previous day.

Saturday was the main celebration of Midwinters. We all put on our best clothes and sat down to an amazing feast prepared by Rocket. For Entrée we had Salmon Sous Vide with Nori Furikake, Soba Noodles, Soy bean wasabi cream and Teriyaki sauce. Mains was duck breast confit with ragout of lentils and root vegetables, asparagus and greens, onion marmalade and porcini jus. Then finally for desert we were given dark chocolate mousse cake with berry fruits and Chantilly cream. Obviously a main topic of discussion during dinner was how men like Shackleton and Mawson had most definitely exaggerated the stories of their expeditions down South because life down here couldn’t possibly have been that hard.

After dinner and a quick group photo we all returned to the bar to watch the AAD’s midwinters video followed by the first gig of the Mawson station band consisting of Darren, Frank and Todd, who we had all been eagerly awaiting and they put on a stellar performance.

Sunday was a fairly quiet day around station, if we had mice, they would have dared not stirred. It was mostly just people emerging to find something to eat from the ‘catch and kill’ fridge then quietly returning to whence they came.  

Midwinters came to a close on the Monday night with a screening of the 1951 original ‘The Thing’. With popcorn and choc-top ice-cream it was the perfect ending to a great Midwinters celebrations. 

Honourable mention to Todd who organised the whole celebration down to a T even though I’m sure it was more like herding cats. And of course Rocket who out did himself with the food for the whole weekend and who is actually still recovering from his efforts.

Our Doctor Frank has posted our monthly medical and weigh in’s for next week which I think is some kind of sick joke.

Hey Hey Everyone,
So it’s been a fairly quiet and easy week. Monday night we started off down in the brewery bottling 200 litres of the latest batch of larger. About 7 of us dove in and got it all done in a couple hours after dinner. Still pretty tough lifestyle. During the week we were all going out in groups of three (plus mark, the FTO) and going through our Hagg navigation training. I was originally supposed to do it last Friday with Frank our doctor but the weather turned at about 9am and we had a lot of blowing snow coming through so we made the decision to put it off until Monday. We had really nice clear weather over that weekend and then in true Antarctic fashion it blew up again on Monday so we had to put it off again. Since we had now been branded as the cursed group, Frank and myself were put at the end of the line and set to do our training after everyone else so we set out for ours this Friday just gone. Though perhaps it was Darren, one of our weather observers, who bought us good luck and clear weather as he had to rotate into our group to suit his work schedule. We headed off after smoko as the sun doesn’t really rise until about 11am at this stage. Mark had to teach us how to set up & use our GPS navigation and follow set way points and routes to navigate our way up the plateau and keep clear of crevasse fields. Everything went smoothly as Darren drove the first leg of the trip as we were going to make our way to Hendo Hut. A little over halfway I took over driving and with the Hendo range clear in site we could see snow blowing between the two peaks known as ‘the Gap’. I was having a little chuckle to myself as inside that blowing snow is where the hut was situated. Interestingly enough out in the clear of the plateau there was not much wind but because the Hendo range funnels air through ‘the Gap’ often turning it into a massive wind tunnel it had created a small localised blizzard. So off we went straight to the base of the range and followed the route round to the back of the mountains. Here was where we started to lose visibility as we got up onto the up wind side of Hendo and the blowing snow made it hard to see and read the ground. Taking it slowly I just crawled the hagg along staying within a couple metres of where the GPS told me where the route was, conscious that a couple hundred metres either side of me were big wind scours with quite a large drop off them. Even though 200 meters is a fair way, when we could barely see 10m into the blizz it was slightly stressful. Eventually we found our way to the base of Hendo and navigated our way slowly through ‘the Gap’ and from there we still had about 200 meters to actually make it to Hendo Hut. The winds were very strong at the choke point of ‘the Gap’ and we couldn’t distinguish the ground in front of us. Mark made the decision to turn around and make our way back out. Also to note doing a three point turn when all you can see is a giant wall of white, still slightly stressful. After we made our way back past the gap and a little further away from the mountain, Frank and I had to practice changing drivers while not leaving the vehicle, which was very cramped and awkward but also reminded me of everyone getting into position in the plane before we jump out when skydiving back home. Now the pressure was off I could just relax a bit in the back seat of the hagg as Frank drove us back down from Hendo onto the plateau. Before heading home Mark also had each of us drive while he blacked out the windows with a couple foam mats so we could each experience driving with no visibility and navigate purely off the GPS. We all had a laugh when I turned to Mark when it was my turn saying “Seriously? I JUST did this for real?” but its all good practice.
Other than that I’ve just thrown in a couple pictures of during the week. Shane and I had to get our D6 dozer up and running as we will soon need it to clear snow and we haven’t even started it since we got here. So you can see we had to have a Herman Nelson (a fuel burner/heater) to melt out the snow from the engine bay and clear the fan and belts. A small honda generator charging the batteries and a slightly bigger generator to plug into the block heaters to warm up the engine oil and coolant before we even try to start it. Also we bought our larger Cummins Gen set in side the work shop to check it over aaaaannnndd it was full of blizz. HA! HA!
For those who remember the whole ‘Mawson Assassin’ thing and remember I put a note on my targets door to try and freak him out a bit, I noticed the other day he still has the sign on his door so I thought you might get a laugh from the picture.
The following link is to a video the Division made about the huge blizzard we had here a couple weeks ago from GoPro footage some of the guys sent in. It was pretty full on but it’s worth a watch. https://www.nationaltribune.com.au/mawson-weathers-wild-antarctic-storm/ I would like to Thank those who supported me through out the Push Up challenge. Your support towards the cause is greatly appreciated. 👍😎

G’day Everyone,
So this week is the last week of the push up challenge we’re all involved in raising money for HEADSPACE. We are all competing with each other as to who can do the most push ups inside the 21 days … I am currently coming 3rd having done 3126 push ups in the first 14 days. With still a week to go I have resorted to eating food directly off the plate rather than using my arms to bring the food up to my face. So in short not too much has changed really. There were a few technical issues with the website over the first few days but everything is now back up and running. So if there were any of you still hoping to donate there is still time. Please click on the link https://www.thepushupchallenge.com.au/donate and also please don’t forget to search for either ‘Guy Edgar’ or ‘Awesome Mawson’ when you put in your donation. To those of you who have already donated thank you very much for your support – it is going to a great cause. If any one is interested in finding out more about Headspace please go to https://headspace.org.au/
Thank you and take care,
Guy

Hey Hey!
Weekend before last I finally got out for my first Jolley. Brilly, Aaron, Hamish and myself headed out to Rumdoodle Hut for the Saturday night. We didn’t really get up to much but seeing as the last time I was at Rum we were sleeping out in our bivvie bags it was nice to revisit and actually stay inside the hut. We left Mawson after lunch and it took just under a hour and a half to get out to the hut. The views of the Hendo and Fang mountain ranges on the way were fantastic but slightly lost their grandeur as the windows in the hagg frost over and you have to scrape them clear every five minutes. Luckily the front windscreen is heated so at least the driver can see where we’re going. Once at the hut and everything was all set up Hamish and I went for a small walk over to a massive blizz tail coming off the mountain range behind the hut and took in the amazing views. Since the sun went down at about 3.30 we were soon back in the hut and we broke out the cheese platers and beers obviously reliving the same resilience and endurance displayed by expeditions since Shackleton. For those worrying about me: no need as I am surviving the elements ok thus far. Originally our plan for the next day was to take our time in the morning waiting for the sun to rise then make our way over to the Hendo range and Brilly knew of a great place to go for a hike called ‘End Wave’ – a spot where two glaciers meet and have pushed into each other creating a massive frozen wave effect. Unfortunately the next morning the winds had started to come up fairly substantially with a fair bit of blowing snow so we had very limited visibility. We made the decision to just make our way back to Mawson which was an interesting experience as since we only had a couple meters of visibility we were navigating purely off the GPS screen which does give great faith in our resources. We took our time and still made it back to Mawson in less than two hours, pulled the hagg up as close to the red shed as possible and unloaded all of our gear. By the time we had reached Mawson it was clear a blizzard was well and truly on the way so we had parked the hagg facing into the wind to ensure the wind didn’t blow the doors off. After Unloading Brilly and I jumped back into the Hagg to go and drop off our grey water and sewerage. As Brilly backed the Hagg up to turn around we noticed a strange noise from the drivers side track. We jumped out to check and found the track had jumped off the sprocket and was coming off. YAAAY! If a track comes off it is still possible to drive the hagg so I drove the hagg completely off the track dragged the track out the way then just backed the hagg straight back into EVS (Emergency Vehicle Storage) which fortunately had a spare bay since we had the SAR hagg in the workshop at the time. Not the most amazing experience having to take a track off a vehicle when you are being pelted by blowing snow but we were extremely fortunate that it happened right there instead of out in the field somewhere. During that week on the Tuesday we had a really fun event – we Celebrated Cinco De Mayo (The Mexican Day of the Dead) which was organised by our station leader Matt. Everyone dressed up with masks and Rocket put on some amazing South American food. Afterwards we had a Piñata but that was extremely short lived as Will one of our chippies went first and absolutely destroyed it with one hit. There were quite a few Margaritas had that night so it was lucky the next day had already been organised as a day off. The most interesting thing that has happened lately was that we have finally had our first proper Antarctic blizzard. So far we’ve had really favourable weather and even the veterans have been commenting how lucky we have been. Until last week!!! Once weather has been coded ‘Red’ any outside travel must be in at least pairs and radio communication before and upon arriving at buildings. Monday was coded but luckily for me once I’m in the work shop I don’t really have to move around all that much and at this stage the winds were about 70 knots. As there are some renovations going on inside the red shed at the moment there are a few wooden boxes of pats and supplies stored outside the red shed. The wind blew a couple of these boxes apart spraying ply wood and light fittings all around the station. The decision was made that everyone had to return to the red shed before dark (about 3pm at the moment) to minimise the risk of anyone getting hit by debris. That night the winds continued to gust to over 100 knots so we were not allowed to go outside at all until the weather cleared. By about 10am the next day the weather had eased up a bit so a small group of people went out to asses the damage and see if there was any risk of more debris. A couple machines had smashed windows and a couple buildings had holes punched in them. The winds were still up around the 40-50 knots range for a couple days after but we had definitely been through the worst. Unfortunately though the winds were still strong enough to actually break up and blow away most of the sea ice around Mawson which was just over 80cm thick before the storm. We still have ice in Horse Shoe Harbour but most of the ice I was walking on a couple weeks ago is now completely gone. This means we will not be able to travel out to the Emperor Penguin rookeries for probably another couple of months as we wait for the ice to grow back.
Hope all is well back home,
Stay safe, Guy

THANK YOU for your support with the Push Up Challenge. We have been experiencing Internet issues which have now been resolved. If you were trying to get onto my Push Up Challenge link and were not able to get through and you would still like to provide your support towards this worthy cause it would be greatly appreciated if you would try again. Thanks again. Stay safe. Cheers, Guy

Hey there peoples,
So myself and 11 others down here are getting involved with this years 21 DAY PUSH UP CHALLENGE and raising money for HEADSPACE. Each of us will be completing 3046 push ups between the 11th and 21st of May. HEADSPACE do a lot of work with youth mental health and suicide prevention and the 3046 represents the number of people in Australia last year who committed suicide. Suicide being the number one cause of death of Australians aged between 15 and 24 so this is a very worthy cause. If you would like to Donate please go to https://www.thepushupchallenge.com.au/donate and to the left there is an option to search for a name – please search ‘Guy Edgar’ or ‘Awesome Mawson’ as each of the stations are competing against each other to see who can raise the most money. We made a little promo movie last week which involved going around and getting people to get down and do some push ups. We are still waiting for the media team to come out with the finished product which also doubles as a really good look around the station. I’ve attached some stills from the movie and I’m sure as the weeks go by we will come out with some more great photos with some pretty specky back drops. All of us down here thank you for you’re support. Guy

DONATE – The Push-Up Challenge headspace provides tailored and holistic mental health support to young people to provide support at a crucial time in their lives. Your donation will help us fund world class programs that are improving the mental health of Australians. Thank you – together we can push for better mental health.www.thepushupchallenge.com.au

G’day
How are things back home? So the whole ANZAC day thing down here was pretty big which was great to be apart of. It started off as a small thing originally just for us but suddenly got a lot bigger than anyone expected once the division started talking to media outlets. Our station leader Matt as well as one of our chippies, Will have both spent time in the Army so it was obviously a pretty big deal for them and they were always keen on making a big effort on the day. We actually had to go do a ‘rehearsal’ a few days before ANZAC day so photos and footage could be sent back home to be used on the day. The images seen on the news were actually at about 4pm a few days earlier but since we have day long sunrise/sunset now it worked out pretty well. The actual morning of ANZAC day was pretty special and the effort the guys had put into this was amazing. One of our weather observers, Alison knitted poppies for everyone to pin to their jackets. We walked as a group across station to East bay to the edge of the ice where we had to stop and put ice spikes on our boots and then walk single file along a path marked out by head torches set to their red light setting along the ice. For safety reasons we still had to have our two SAR (search and rescue) quads parked at the edge of the ice just in case anything happened. The flag pole and monument were a couple hundred meters off the land and we huddled as Matt and Will delivered the service and the sun rose behind the cliffs to the East. Following the service we had a Gunfire breakfast in the Green store and then Will had set up a fitness challenge in honour of one of his mates who was killed in combat a few years ago. Seven of us took part and I came fourth and my legs were stuffed for about three days after. Later that Afternoon we all met up at the bar and started to play two-up where all proceeds were to go to a charity to help returning soldiers. Funnily enough a few guys were videoing it and actually had a few of their mates back home betting on it. It was just after we started playing that Todd, one of the plumbers came up to me saying “oh! yeah forgot to tell you earlier, when we went to move the SAR quads back this morning we couldn’t get one started. We tried to jump start it but nothing happened.” This info would have been handy to know much earlier than this but staying where it was wasn’t going to hurt it for now. Later chatting with Shane, my boss, he informed me he had already had a quick look at it, that it wasn’t even cranking so he was confident it was the start relay advising “we’ll get it tomorrow”. So the next day we get the strongest winds and most blowing snow we’ve had since we got here, that on top of not feeling completely well rested from the night before, the quad stayed there another day. So then on the Monday morning I go to get the quad. It’s still reasonably windy but nothing too crazy and just a little bit of blowing snow. I ride another quad out to it so I don’t have to carry tools and I can use it to jump start the dead quad if the battery in it is too cold. The SAR quads have canvas bags with equipment in them on the back and I have to remove the bag to get to the battery and relay. The clips holding the bag on are too fiddly to undo with my usual gloves on so I just had really thin thermal gloves on but in the wind they don’t do too much so every time I un-did a clip I would run back to the quad I brought over and warm my hands back up on the exhaust then un-do the next clip. There were six clips holding the bag on. I take the bag off and then pull the seat and rear cover off the quad to get at the battery and relay. Its all completely full of snow. I dig the snow out, find the relay, turn the ignition on, short out the replay, the quad cranks and cranks and cranks and cranks but doesn’t fire up. It sounds healthy enough but just wont fire up. I look and the handle and on top of the crank button is a kill switch: “there’s no way they forgot to check . . . . .oh you’re kidding me!” At this point I start killing myself laughing … the kill switch was just off centre so someone must have knocked it with their gloves. I put the kill switch back into the start position, hit the crank button and the quad fires up straight away. I could have forgiven Todd for missing this but Shane “Checked it – it’s definitely the relay” and sent me out here for this. So now I had to put the seat back and clip the bags back on. The best part is I don’t even have to say anything to Shane as it’s everyone else on station that jumps on every chance to rip on him for it. We did have a slightly more serious mechanical issue the week before. I was doing a service on one of our generators. I cut the oil filter open to check if there is anything inside and found small bits of metal building up in the filter. We ran it for another 24 hours to double check we have an issue and found it was still making metal. So we dropped the sump of the engine and checked all the crankshaft and con-rod bearings = they were all ok. We eventually found it was a bearing for one of the idler gears at the front of the engine. After we replaced the bearing the engine has been running fine. As far as Mawson Assassin went the game continued for another few days and ended on the Thursday. It came down to Brett (whom I was initially supposed to assassinate) the carpenters supervisor and Dave, our plant operator. Since during the week working hours were off limits to assassination but smoko and lunch time were open season, Dave waited around the corner of where Brett was working and un-aware of the time. As soon as it hit 10am Dave snuck up behind Brett and killed him. We had a little presentation on the Friday night and crowned Dave as the Mawson Master Assassin. Hamish, one of our chippies did an amazing job of making up a trophy which we will put a plaque with Dave’s name and then leave here for other years to have their own competitions and have a bit of an on-going legacy. Other than that the only other notable event has been going out to take sea ice measurements. There’s about eight of us all rostered on to go out in pairs once a week (usually on a Thursday) and take measurements of the ice in four set locations around Mawson. I’ve been paired up with Frank the station doctor, ironically enough, he is the oldest and I am the youngest on station. Mark our FTO came with us for our first run and we decided to walk it for our first time. Its about an 8km round trip and took us about two hours and was great to go trekking out across the ice. We are now measuring around 70cm of ice at all of the sites so at the moment the ice seems to be growing by 5cm thickness each week. I’ve also attached some other photos from a while back which people have taken of me earlier in the trip. There are some good ones in there. If you would like to contact me directly you can do so via my email address – Mum has my contact details. Take care and stay safe. Cheers, Guy.

www.youtube.com/watch

I’m second from the left.

Hi there,
The sea ice is now open for operations!! We have been given permission from head office at Kingston to start travelling on the sea ice. It was a fair process getting the approval. Usually the division won’t allow any sea ice travel until the start of May but since we’ve had really good weather and have been locked in by the ice for about 6 weeks we were first given permission to go out just to drill and measure the ice two weeks ago. We used Mark our FTO as the canary – he suited up in a dry suit and we had one other person dressed up and waiting with an ice recovery skid in case he went through and needed a rescue. Mark went about 30 meters off the shore in Horseshoe Harbour and took his first drill measurement: 47cm. We only need 20cm to walk on the ice so that was plenty. We could even ride quads on this ice as we need 40cm for quad travel. After the first measurement Mark was happy to walk out into the middle of the harbour – or just shy of as the rope we had on him ran out by then, close to 100m. He measured 45cm in the middle of the harbour so he was very happy and confident we had good ice in the harbour. Next we went to the other side of Mawson and out into East bay and Mark took a second set of measurements again measuring over 40 cm of ice. So this data was sent back to the division and we waited for their decision. They soon came back approving us to start doing our sea ice training. A few of us did go out with Mark one day onto the ice before doing our training as we needed to put a marker in the middle of the bay to identify one of the sites we will be taking our sea ice measurements throughout the year to help with studies being conducted back in Australia. Unfortunately this is one of the only really scientific things we will be apart of this year if no people are allowed to come in for the summer season because of this Corona stuff. A few of us have put our hands up and are now on a roster to go out once a week and take measurements in 4 or 5 places around Mawson. This last Friday we all went out and did our sea ice training in Horseshoe Harbour. It was pretty basic training and went for about an hour and a half covering protocols on planning going out and logging trip information and scheduled radio checks every hour. We also had a go at manually drilling the ice and measuring it as well as practicing self rescue and rescuing others in the event of breaking through the ice. It was all good fun and quite a cool experience standing where the Aurora Australis had been moored a couple months ago. The only other note worthy event in the last couple weeks has been a game we have all played over this weekend called “Mawson Assassin”. We were all given a butter knife with someone’s name on it – this person was our target. The object of the game was to sneak up and assassinate this person (figuratively of course) without anyone else witnessing the kill. Bedrooms, Bathrooms, the mess and work places were all safe zones where no kills could take place. We started at 10:00 am on Saturday and by 10:10am someone was already dead. Actually after the first day only 6 out of the 18 people playing were still alive. It was a lot of fun watching peoples reactions and paranoia set in as suddenly no one trusted each other. I actually got a mirror out of my tool box and used it to look around corners and took to constantly changing which cold porch I entered and exited the red shed to make my movements harder to track. My target was Brett the Carpenters supervisor. I didn’t expect people to drop like flies as quick as we did – I thought the game would go on for a fair bit longer and was planning for a longer period. My plan was not to kill Brett straight away as I wanted to make him sweat for a couple days. So whilst he was outside I made up a little note with a picture from a movie called ‘The Purge’ (basically a couple people wearing creepy masks holding machetes) and wrote on the picture “Come out and Play”. It was at this point I thought to myself: “I probably really shouldn’t have passed the Antarctica Psych test”. Unfortunately I was killed off a couple hours later by Rocket our chef. I had just come back from the gym, washed my water bottle in the mess and as I was walking back to my room via the hallway I heard the TAP TAP TAP behind me. I swung around and saw Rocket (still in his butchers apron) running at me brandishing his knife yelling as he charged towards me. Needless to say I shat myself!!! I panicked as I couldn’t get through the doorway quick enough as the gas strut of the door fought me to open the door faster. In the heat of the moment I completely forgot my room was a safe zone and ran full pelt past my room down the other end of the hallway. As I got to the end I tried to plan my escape but realised there were at least three doors between me and outside. Knowing how much trouble I had with the last door I didn’t have a hope of getting enough distance between me and Rocket. I was trapped!!! So I gave up and surrendered my knife to Rocket. So as you can tell it’s all high octane adventure down here. 😁
Hope all is well back home.

Hey there,
Hope you’re all going well. So there’s not really been a whole lot happening down here of late but I do have a few new pics for you. Everyone is just getting settled into their routines as the initial excitement is slowly wearing off to the point it is very easy to forget that we are in Antarctica and a -18 day with next to no wind is a “Bloody beautiful day”. People are still getting through their survival training with groups of four going out every week. I will sleep VERY well knowing there is a group out sleeping in their bivvies tonight. There is one more group to go through it next week and then everyone will be field and survival trained. So after that hopefully some more field based jobs come up and maybe even start sneaking away to one of the huts for weekend trips. So far we have been extremely lucky with the weather and have only had one blizzard come through which only lasted just over a day. We have outside travel restrictions during blizzards which is we have to travel in at least pairs and radio comes before leaving a building and when we have reached the building. Being the first blizzard it was all pretty exciting especially watching the snow pelting past the windows while in the safety of the red shed. Visibility dropped well below 100 meters and you literally couldn’t see the next building. Sea ice formed out in front of the station about three weeks ago – once the temperature was consistently low enough it only took about 4 days for the water to freeze over. Unfortunately we are not allowed to set foot on it yet as the Antarctic division have a set date every year from which they will let us travel on the ice but we still probably have about a month before they will allow us to head out on it. But I am definitely looking forward to going through the sea ice training and getting out there. The harbour out the front of Mawson now looks like a giant frozen footy field. I’ve tossed in a couple photos from our first fire drill. One day we ran through the whole process from the fire alarm going off, mustering, those on fire team getting into their turn out gear, identifying where the fire is and getting set up to enter the building. Was a lot of fun as well as a good experience to go through the motions. My role is the hagg driver and pump operator so I have to get the fire hagg started and down to which ever hydrant the fire chief identifies as the best to use and get the hoses connected to the site water services and operate the fire pump as needed. Winter is coming!!! When I first arrived here the sun was going down around 11.30pm but now it is completely dark by 8pm which is a pretty big change since I’ve been here almost two months. But the cool thing about it being dark more often is that we are now starting to see Auroras and now also earlier and earlier each night. Its calming down a bit now but in the beginning you could tell there was an Aurora outside because you would wake up to the sound of people clamouring to get their cameras and gear to go out and get photos. They are amazing to watch especially last night I saw the best one yet as it came through so brightly and not just the standard green but even hints of red and was the first one I’ve seen strong enough to actually change shape and dance across the sky. Its the same kind of mesmerising sensation as watching a camp fire . . . . . . . minus the warmth. All in all its going really well and everyone is getting along great with no issues. Every week on Friday we have ‘knock off drinks’ in one of the buildings which is a great way to get around and hang out in different parts of the station you don’t normally work in. Last week we had drinks in the Comms building and we were hosted by the Meteorology team Darren and Alison. The Chippies did their bit and made up a mini golf course through a couple of rooms and there was ‘Ten Pin Toilet Paper bowling’ down the far end. All good fun. I’ve had the Station leader Matt and our station doctor each come into the workshop and be my apprentices for the day so I’ve had them servicing the station utes. And our FTO (field training officer) was keen to do some work on our outboard motors as he is currently doing his coxswains course so I’ve had plenty of company in the workshop. The weekend before last I went on a walk to ‘Gwamm’ which is a check point on our travel route up to the plateau only about 2km away from station but quite a steep walk. The round trip takes about 1.5 hours (depending how often you stop to take photos – pretty sure it would be an over night trip if Mum was doing it) but was great to walk out from station a bit and take it all in from a distance. Gwamm is just within our station limits and a cache of supplies is left there in case of emergencies because people don’t have to take their field packs with them if only travelling that far. Having a bit of a laugh to myself now because when I sat down to write this I really thought I didn’t have much to talk about. Ha! Ha!
Anyway hope everyone is doing well back home. Love, Guy. N.B. Just added Aurora Video at end of Aurora photos.