The End
THE END
So that's it! Adventure done, box ticked... goin' home to see what happens next. Even though you know it's coming and have been waiting for it with excitement, it's still a weird feeling to leave Mawson Station after all this time and be heading back to reality.. well a different reality anyway. A year away is a very long time, even though on the day I woke up knowing we would be leaving, I wondered where the year had actually gone.
The Nuyina arrived mid January to find a lot of ice still in Kista Strait and Horseshoe Harbour immediately in front of Mawson Station. So basically for the first week the Nuyina "drove" up and down the "street" trying to crunch up the at times 1 metre thick ice so it would all blow away the next time we got a decent bit of wind coming off the Ice Plateau. Every morning almost without exception we get Katabatic Winds from the South which would be perfect to push the ice out to sea. The problem was they were remarkably tame winds... around 10-15 knots most days.. when they are often above 30 knots. So the ice sat there and looked at us for a week. The ship did manage to get the incoming 78th ANARE Wintering crew onto the Station though and we spent that first week doing our handovers to our replacements.
Above: Photo showing the amount of sea ice still around the Station in Mid January. That's a lot of ice to go somewhere before we could do the resupply.
Below: The Nuyina poking its nose into Horseshoe Harbour to try and crunch up the ice which is delaying our re-supply and our trip home.
Eventually, after a week of said crunching up sea ice, enough of it moved to allow the barges to move the sea containers from the ship to the Station wharf where the crane picked it up for squirrelling away in some secret spot, never to be seen again. This in itself took about five days and then we moved onto the re-fuelling. This process is exactly the same as it was way back on March 29th last year and you can find details of it in my Blog Post from then titled "On our Own". The Nuyina can hold about 5 Million litres of fuel in total, so the 650,000 litres it took to top up the Mawson Station fuel tanks really didn't worry them to much. It was decided to run the re-fuelling over a 24 hr period instead of starting and stopping in order to make the most of the benign weather were were experiencing.
As a result we then had to get a roster going to make sure all the jobs were covered and no-one was left out for too long falling asleep when they were supposed to be walking along the fuel line making sure it wasn't pouring fuel into the harbour instead of our fuel tanks!
By the time this was complete we were ( the outgoing 77th ANARE crew ) well and truly over the whole thing and just wanted to get on the boat and go home. The date for our shift to the ship was set for Sunday 2nd Feb and we all gleefully packed up our things and cleaned our rooms ready to go. Packing up was a strange thing to the very last minute as it has been easy to forget that any other world other than what we see down here exists. So the idea of packing to go somewhere else almost made no sense at all.. where did we think we were going to go?
However, as keen to go to the Brave New World as we were, Antarctica said not quite yet. In a bizarre twist, one of our 77th ANARE Wintering crew developed Appendicitis two days before we were due to leave!
And this was not the only case of appendicitis on Station believe it or not. The Senior Comms Tech from the 78th ANARE, who was to replace me, developed appendicitis on the ship on the way here as well! It was treated with lots of antibiotics on the ship and he recovered enough not to require an operation.... but the risk of it flaring up again was too great and it was decided to return him to Hobart with us on the ship.. leaving the 78th Communications Technical Officer to fill his shoes and become the single Comms Tech for the upcoming year.
Our 77th expeditioner also received gallons of antibiotics on a drip but his condition did not improve at all. So the fateful decision was made.... he would have to have an operation here on Station to get it out! Now having major surgery is not a great option here in Antarctica but as luck would have it, it was the perfect time for down here.
As the new 78th Crew was on station as well as ours, we had here two Doctors, one Ambulance Paramedic ( who was visiting Antarctica to help plan better first aid training for future expeditions ) and two sets of Lay Surgical Assistants (LSAs - a total of 8 Expeditioners who have done two weeks of training in Hobart Hospitals to assist with surgery if needed). A week later or earlier and he would not have been so lucky.
This now meant that everything on Station basically stopped unless it was directly related to the surgery. The Nuyina stopped all trips to the Station for "Tourists" or cargo/refuelling, and all Station personnel were only working if it related directly to the operation. For example, mechanics and electricians sat in the Main Power House to ensure the power stayed on ( not great if the power goes off during surgery! ) and Comms people made sure the Satellite link for the video feed of the operation stayed on ( Specialist Surgeons were watching proceedings from Hobart and giving advice etc during the actual operation ). Once the operation was complete the LSAs kept a 24 hour watch on the patient to ensure no nasty complications arose. After all, we were still 5,500 kms away from specialist medical care!
Fortunately, thanks to the skill of everyone involved, all went well and three days later we got the go ahead to get onto the ship and prepare to leave! So on Sunday 2nd Feb we boarded the little orange boats and headed for the Nuyina.
Below: Loading our bags onto the boats ready to move to Nuyina
Above: Start of the long journey home.
Monday evening saw us depart, with the 78th ANARE crew replacing us coming out to the end of West Arm to wave us goodbye. The departure wasn't as spectacular as last years as it was still daylight so the traditional letting off of out of date flares was OK but not the highlight. I pulled out the bagpipes for one last tune or two as we sailed away and began the real process of thinking about what happens next.
Below: Crew of the Nuyina, Expeditioners from Mawson Wintering 77th and summer expeditioners waving goodbye to Mawson station.
Above: Last couple of tunes to say goodbye.. was still bloody cold on the hands!
Below: Waving the flares for the last time.
And then, just like that, we were gone. We had a little bit of sea ice to break through but nothing significant or enough to slow us down.
Below: Last view of the Station... home for the last 11 months.
So we once again found ourselves on the ship with not much to do but wait around for the next meal to arrive. We did play some board games, walk aimlessly in circles around the deck trying to convince ourselves that we were actually exercising, read books, watched movies, felt sea sick etc etc... but after about three days of that you have well and truly had enough. Its been interesting to see the difference in attitude about this last voyage back to Hobart between the Winterers ( just our Mawson 77th ANARE crew ) and the summer crews (everybody else) who have only been down for about three months. The summer people are lamenting the end of the trip and all the Winterers just can't wait for arrival in Hobart.
The first week of the voyage was remarkably calm.. for days at a time.. calmer than any of the days we had when we were coming down last year. The second week got a little more lumpy but still only around 4-6 metre swells so not anything like the 11 metre swells we had back then.
Above: Trip home on the Nuyina.
So eventually, after what did seem like a very very long time but was actually 14 days, on the 16th Feb 2025, exactly 1 year to the day since we left Hobart, we peered through the mist and saw..LAND!! Not brown, or white or even a blue colour but real land with grass and tree/shrub things with buildings and a lighthouse.. being Maatsuyker Island just off the South West tip of Tasmania. We were home... well not technically but close enough to end my Blog. The next few days will be taken up with things like meeting Leanne as soon as I got through customs and getting used to being around each other again! I have a couple of days in Hobart doing de-briefs with Head Office, returning equipment etc and then..it really is time to go home properly.
So, how do I sum up this experience in 30 seconds or less? Very difficult to do. I have seen some amazing sights that few people get to see. Spent over a month on a ship in the Southern Ocean dodging icebergs. Travelled over frozen sea ice and freshwater ice kilometres deep on the Antarctic Continent. Seen Emperor penguins in their breeding huddle in the middle of an Antarctic winter.. and seen the chicks hatch and grow. Blazing Auroras have filled the sky above me.. including a time lying on a rock and it looked like the very hand of God was reaching down to me. I have been colder than I ever have been before ( air temperature of -38C not including wind chill! ) and walked through a blizzard where I could barely see where my feet were treading.
Living in Antarctica, you might as well be living on the moon.. it is so far away from everything else.. and it looks like the moon as well... all rock and white and brown and in winter you are the only living thing around that you can see.. apart from the other 19 expeditioners. Home and family seem and are a very long way away. It has been a unique experience full of wonder but also a very difficult experience with endless Groundhog days.. same old same old.. weekends are the same old same old just you aren't working. People annoy you with little things.. and big things that cause you a lot of grief that keeps on coming.. because you can't get away from them... ever! You long for a fresh piece of fruit..fresh vegetables.. and wonder how much asparagus that is old and manky can the Chef find to keep feeding us?? I have missed the feel of the sun warming my skin, a hug from a loved one, the smell of the eucalypt trees. There have been several times when someone has touched me .. even accidently over the last year and I have jumped... it is such a weird thing to be touched by another person here!
I have also come to rely on a few people down here to help me get by.. the shared experience is a very strong tie that binds us together. But as strong as it is, we will drift apart and this will become a memory. So it is time to shift from this experience, make it a part of me but move to the next thing.
So, would I do it again if I had the choice? No. Not ever. Whilst it has been a great experience I feel that the price that you have to pay, a year of your life away from your family and friends, the difficulties I have found on Station etc, is not worth the reward you get... as good as it is. Perhaps if it was a six month period ... maybe.. but you cannot get the Winter Antarctic experience on a six month stint with the Australian Antarctic Division and I definitely think a summer trip of three or four months is not the real Antarctic deal.
But there are plenty of other Expeditioners who would strongly disagree with me and say it is well worth the year of your life. So its horses for courses.. but it's hard to know until you try... and the people that you are sent down with can make or break the trip.. this is something you have no control over. So who knows what you will get.. it's a bit of a lottery.
As for me, my next adventures will be with my wife, family and friends and willnot mean being isolated for so long! I look forward to whatever those adventures may be, in whatever parts of the world they may be in and wish you all the best in your adventures as well.
I leave you with the motto I have have adopted for the future and which has helped me stay sane over the last 12 months..
Do more of the things that make you smile.
Thanks for sharing my journey.
Peter Caithness.
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