Home Sweet Home

After almost two weeks since I stepped foot on Antarctica I've finally moved myself into the room I'll spend the rest of the year in (unless I get restless). I considered the layout, how much foot traffic would be passing, proximity to bathrooms, the view, wind noise, number of neighbours, and many other criteria.... then threw it all in the too hard basket and picked a room with a fuzzy green owl in it. The furniture is kind of modular; there are railings on the walls to hang cork boards of shelves from, and a lot of the floor stuff is on wheels. As there are only 14 of us living here over winter, and there are almost 40 rooms, we have enough space for each person to have one bedroom and one spare room for storage. That state that you actually receive your room in is entirely dependent on the good will of the departing tenant - some rooms were left spic and span, while others show more signs of being lived in: I discovered pens and tools in desks, the odd tissue box and moisturizer stashed in low drawers, bunny ears and a green grassy owl (which I've pilfered) in my explorations.

We are a bit lucky this year and got a shipment of new fancy-pants king-single mattresses, but the AAD neglected to consider that the bed frames are only for a normal single. I've elected to use the new mattress anyway, and at the moment it is just sitting on the runners. It may end up with a bit of droopage once the year is out, but that is a risk that I'll just have to take.
Here is my room:

And my storage room:

Clearly my time away so far hasn't impacted my natural neat-freak-streak ;) truthfully, I am just not fully settled yet. There are many more interesting things to be done, and I have little patience for unpacking or tidying when there are penguins outside.

We may as well also take a quick photo tour of the upstairs living area while you are visiting:

A Mawson plaque and portrait greet you as you climb the stairs

Here is the view I relax to

and the music I relax with.

It's home, it's Mawson

and Mawson likes a beer. 

One of the last sled dogs guards the dog room

which is basically a local museum.

Public libraries are an amazing resource if you want more info :)

The cinema is not pictured because it was in use while I had the camera out, but I'm sure you can imagine a dark room with a projector and lots of comfy chairs :)

Since we're on the subject of living arrangements, I may as well introduce you to the people I'm spending the next 12 months with. 

The crew from left to right, back row then front row:

• Charlie (and the chocolate factory...)- a plumber
• Your loving author, aka Pleb, aka minion- the Met Tech
• Linc aka Scrat aka BigDog aka Bossman- the Met Snr Observer
• John Leben- our intrepid station leader
• Peter L- Building supervisor, chippy, and second in charge on station
• Kim- the Kitchen Magician
• Trev- comms wizard and brewmaster
• Dr "Cut-it-off" Kate
• Rob aka Angry the dieso
• Paul- the dieso-in-charge
• Robbie the sparky, aka Roby Barker, Roby Wan
• Peter, also a sparky, aka The Count or PLC
• Ev, plumber number two, aka Goffy or "that Kiwi"

Our Field Training Officer, JB, is not shown because he got impatient and kayaked down south solo so he could meet us here. 

All told so far we are quite a happy bunch of misfits. Between us we cover veganism, vegetarianism, pescetarianism, kiwi-ism, exhibitionism, altruism, and probably most other -ism's you care to invent. I'm sure we're going to discover a couple more over the coming year.

Here's a sample of more fun photos

As a closing statement for this post, I would just like to mention that the Ministry of Clouds has finally advertised positions for next season. The Met tech and junior observer jobs are open to non- public service applicants, so if you're interested in getting paid to visit a colder, dryer, windier, more awesome place and have a technical or science-y (weather preferred) background have a look at the ads here.

Mawson Station

I sat down to write this segment expecting to write nothing more than a brief chat while I get used to typing again, however the post has ended up rather longer than I intended. It was weird to think I am more settled now than I have been for the last seven months, so I'm going to try to paint a picture of my new home for you. Mawson station is located around 67 degrees south, 62 degrees east - a little over 7000km from my home in Australia. We are Australia's oldest Antarctic station and the longest continually inhabited station south of the Antarctic circle.

It has been affectionately (I think) described as a "windy shithole" by some of the outgoing crew, and with good reason. We are sitting at the bottom of a huge ice plateau and a couple of mountain ranges, so the katabatic effect (look it up) means our local wind speed averages 21 knots. It has been known to gust over 140 knots (250km/h!) Couple that with a summer average max of +5 degrees and a winter average min of -22 and I'm sure you can see some potential for discomfort.

It is absolutely worth visiting though, the majesty of this place more than makes up for the weather. The station itself sits on a rocky hill above a little cove called Horseshoe Harbour. When (if!) the sea ice clears out each summer the Aurora Australis parks herself 100m from shore and resupply commences.

The sun setting over the AA in harbour, Casey ranges in the background, and ice-bergs out to sea create a vista that has to be seen to be believed.You can settle in to the mess and enjoy the view with a first class meal cooked up by the stations chef, or from the well appointed (and stocked) bar upstairs. And then when it's all too much I can retire to my private bedroom, which is actually larger than my room was at college. Yep, things sure have changed since Mawson the explorer first set foot on the ice.

The electricity to keep us at a cosy 21 degrees inside is supplied by a combination of diesel generators and our iconic wind turbines, which provided more than 50% of the power used by the 2014 expeditioners last year. 

Our water comes from a melt bell above the station, which essentially uses the ice as both container and supply. Water is one creature comfort that we do make minor sacrifices for coming down here;

at present we are restricted to a 2 minute shower every second day, however the AAD does their best compensate with a truly prodigious supply of free chocolate. On first entering the mess you are accosted by the sight of a wooden treasure chest, brimming with Crunchie, Mars Bars, Picnic, Cadbury blocks... and frankly, I will be impressed if we winterers make a dint in our year's allocation. After a binge it's easy to burn off the guilt in one of the station's two gyms.

Mawson station has plenty of buildings scattered around, and many of them are all but abandoned. The buildings that I personally will be visiting most frequently are:

• the Red Shed - home. Also contains the mess, the bar, the cinema, the lounge, the dog room, a cardio gym, WiFi, the dress-up store, the brewery, the medical center and the surgery.
• Ops Center - my second home. Here we have the Met Office and my workshop, the station leaders office, the comms office, the Post Office, and a little kitchen. 
• Hydro - third on my list of responsibilities is the hydroponics building. The greenery, humidity and warmth make this a really nice place to spend a half hour. 
• the Green Store - a bloody big shed, home to all our frozen and non-perishable foodstuffs, alcohol, miscellaneous hardware. Upstairs we have the main gym and spa/sauna. 

We have ongoing science projects hiding out in various old buildings - the Ionosphere Prediction service, aeronomy, cosray, the clean air lab and ARPANSA are all represented in separate locations. Some of these fall under my jurisdiction, but for the most part they should be fairly autonomous.

There are also plenty of trade workshops and plant buildings in town, including a large red mechanical workshop, the "Rosella building" chippie's castle, many no-touch blue power houses and the waste treatment plant and incinerator are all spread around, down hill from the red shed. Further around towards the west are the old station buildings, most of which are heritage listed. These buildings provide amazing insight into the lives of early expeditioners; two to a room a quarter of the size of my spacious apartment and a single bathroom shared for the whole building. Functional, but minimalist out of necessity. Furthest west of the old station are the dog lines and shed. This area is fascinating as well because it acts as a catchment for waste blown in by the katabatics. The ground is littered with old steak bones from the dogs dinners, bits of birds that have been scavenged by the Skuas more recently, penguin feathers that were scattered during the molt, and station trash left from the older, harder days.

That might be just about enough typing for tonight. In the future I plan to discuss:

• pre-departure training
• what it is I'm actually doing
• my two weeks on the AA
• the team
• station hydroponics

I will also be posting the best of the photos I've taken if I can manage to get through them all eventually.

If there is anything else you are particularly keen to hear about let me know in the comments.

The AAD also have great resources about all the stations that you can get to from here: http://www.antarctica.gov.au/living-and-working/stations/mawson

Update- It's taken so long between me writing this entry and actually posting it that the AA has since left the harbour. Normally that would have been the last we saw of non-winterers for a long time, but we have two helicopter crews sharing our space until they get a clear window of weather to fly to Davis. It took all day to get the AA out of harbour - we had to wait for wind gusting under 25 knots to ferry the passengers on board, and then there was the logistical nightmare of getting us to release the nine mooring points in the right order. But once the ship was freed we all made our way over to the point of West Arm and used our expired flares to see them off!