This week at Mawson we focused on exercise with the interstation darts competition and Walk to the South Pole dominating our week.

Walk to the South Pole

On the first of July, five teams set out to walk, run, ski, swim or row 2500 kilometres, the distance from Mawson station to the South Pole.

At the end of the first week, and following some major competition at Mawson station, the stats were:

  • Remediation Rampage — 603 kilometres (orange)
  • Casey White Walkers — 679 kilometres (green)
  • The Gumboot Ramblers — 502 kilometres (purple)
  • Team Davis — 500 kilometres (red)
  • Team Mawson — 1267 kilometres (blue)

Here at Mawson we had some early injuries and with only nine people on our team, we were a bit worried about keeping up. The competitive spirit is alive and well though with Tony D and Dr Mal clocking up over 400 kilometres each this week with multiple gym sessions every day! We are waiting with bated breath on station to see if they cause themselves an injury or if they make it to the South Pole on their own.

If we were actually walking we would have left the Casey Ranges (pictured) far behind and would have nearly reached the Prince Charles Mountains.

It is great to see all the teams getting involved, the gym so busy that we nearly need a booking sheet and people getting sweaty and energetic. We will be summer ready in no time.

Meanwhile elsewhere on station there was reports of a tumbleweed spotted in the bar area after 8 pm yesterday…

Jen Wressell

Blizz line maintenance

One of the important jobs over winter is to maintain the blizzard lines that run around station. The blizz lines connect each building and provide a tactile clue as to where you are if you are stuck when visibility is poor. All blizz lines end at a building so if you follow one you know for sure that you will find safety.

Blizz line maintenance is a second job for Dr Mal, who over the last couple of months has set about making sure that the lines are intact and running to all areas that people need to visit. This sounds simple but the lines run across roads, meaning that they have to be easy to remove or low for vehicles to drive over. The lines also stretch in the wind over time and need to be tightened so that no one trips or loses their head! The most time consuming task by far though is freeing up the lines after a few days of snow.

Over the last couple of weeks this has become an almost full time job with all hands required on deck to clear the blizzard lines as blizz tails start to bury the station.

Daaaarrrrrrts

Last week marked the beginning of the interstation darts competition for Mawson. How do you play darts against a station that is a few hundred kilometres away? We set up the video conferencing unit in the bar and watch each others dart boards, easy!

We had a big week planned playing Casey on Thursday followed by Davis on Friday night.

The team has been practising for a few weeks now, but unfortunately some have been practising too much and a couple of days before the first comp Tony D retired injured. Fortunately Hilly stepped up to the plate.

So on Thursday night our darts team consisted of Craig (Captain), Tony H, Josh, Sam, Hilly & Shane.

The team fought a good battle against Casey with the score board even after two rounds, but unfortunately we lost the third giving Casey the points (Casey 2 — Mawson 1).

By the time we came to play Davis though we were in the zone and focused, the cheese platter was ready and due to ‘Dry July’ the sparkling water was flowing. Again it was a close fought challenge with Davis fighting until the very end of the third round, but finally we managed to close them out and win the game (Mawson 2 — Davis 1).

This weekend we play the final game in this first round against Macca… and we are feeling lucky!

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