Antarctic video gallery
Nuyina homeward bound
Video transcript
The delivery voyage is very important for us because it allows us to actually get that final confirmation that the ship's in good operating condition. It's going to be an amazing opportunity to see this ship in action, in all weather, on a really extended voyage.
To see the ship finally come off the berth and actually proceed to sea under its own power, and it still takes my breath away when I see photos of the vessel at sea, because it's been a long time in the making. And we're almost there to have it here in Hobart and actually start working for the program which it's been designed for.
So distance wise it's about 12,000 miles. So we're looking at about halfway around the planet.
Yeah, this is a big event in my life, and certainly a big event in the Australian Antarctic community.
Which will allow people not just to see the ship, but to understand the connection between the ship and the amazing capability it delivers. The scientific ability, the logistics ability, the Australia's presence in Antarctica that it's going to bring.
Throw the drinks on ice, we're on our way, we'll see you in six and a half weeks and certainly a lot more comfort and a lot quicker than Abel Tasman did in 1642.
She's steaming south right now with the Australian flag flying high. It's an incredibly proud moment for the Australian Antarctic Division.
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Learning the ropes
Video transcript
This training sets the scene for attending to a casualty in the wilderness in any sort of circumstance. At night time, in the rain, in the cold, whatever arises.
We'll hold it and then one, two, three, down. Okay just to make sure that everything's okay. Right so one, two, three, up.
You're far away from, from help and you really have to be self-sufficient, but more than that you actually rely on your team surprisingly how much you depend on the others with you.
Sally, some, how's about we leave you some pain relief and a radio. I'll kill the radio as well.
It was wonderful. Yes so it was great we were a small group and I think we all got to know each other pretty well over the eight days and it was challenging.
Would you be able to (indistinguishable) We've got some people listening out to see if you're nearby.
One of the aspects on the course was to kind of try and get yourself acclimatised by having cold showers in the morning, so that's going pretty well at the minute, so.
I like the concept of being a little bit outside of your comfort zone but being able to kind of utilise what's around you with your everyday kind of experience, and yeah maybe experience all the outdoors as well, and being able to thrive in that environment is quite appealing.
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Ships of science
Video transcript
Rob Bryson (General Manager, Assets and Infrastructure): What it does represent is a significant milestone in Australia's interaction and endeavors in Antarctic history because this ship represents all of the knowledge and all of the technology that has been used over those hundred years.
Jono Reeve (Science Coordination Manager – Nuyina project): Nella Dan got blown ashore in a rapid change of weather that blew the ship ashore whilst it was refueling the station. She was a small vessel with only a single propeller and no thrusters and a dragging anchor in that situation makes it very difficult very quickly.
I was still fairly junior in those days but I know there was a lot of heartache and financial calculation being done and I'm afraid the owners of the ship reached the conclusion that they couldn't tow it all the way back to Singapore for repair, and they had to take it offshore and sink it offshore, which was a sad day for many people. There were a lot of tears shed.
Jono Reeve (Science Coordination Manager – Nuyina project): With Aurora Australis we had an amazing new world-leading capability. All these capabilities that people had dreamed of for some time and all these things we wanted to do, we could now do and plan to do, and work out ways to do new things that we hadn't ever done before. Those early science voyages were just a buzz with people blinded by the science and the interest of what they were doing and the capabilities of the ship to do all this amazing research. It was a very exciting time.
I can remember when Aurora Australis left Hobart for the last time. It was very poignant because a lot of my life has been involved on that ship, and working towards all the things it's done in its life, and now I'm working on the replacement that's coming our way shortly.
Kim Ellis (AAD Director): It's a truly remarkable ship. It's a Swiss army knife of maritime capabilities. It will be the most complete and powerful scientific research vessel in the ocean when it arrives here.
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Birth of an icebreaker
Video transcript
Rob Bryson – General Manager (Icebreaker project): Every ship that is designed for a national Antarctic program is based on what's come before and it takes it to the next level. The Nuyina is probably the biggest ice-breaking research vessel on the planet.
Greg Hunt – Former Environment Minister: Today we are announcing a 1.91 billion dollar lifetime contract for the new Antarctic icebreaker.
Rob Bryson: Today we started the plasma cutter for the first time on the construction process for Australia's new Antarctic research vessel. This is a key milestone because it ends the process of design, which has been going for the last 12 months, but the project itself had its inception in 2008 when we first started talking about this ship, and the need to replace the Aurora Australis over the next decade.
Nick Gales – Former AAD Director: We're here for a very important moment to mark the keel laying of Australia's new icebreaker. We're placing four coins on the keel of the ship today, an Australian coin of course as it'll be the Australian Antarctic Program ship, a coin from Romania to mark where the ship was built, a coin from the Netherlands to mark that Damen Schelde Naval shipbuilders have designed and are responsible for the building of the ship, and also a Danish coin to mark that the original designs from Knud E. Hansen came from Denmark.
Daisy Allen - Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre representative: The word Nuyina was first shared by aborigines with Government agent George Augustus Robinson in August 1831. He wrote in his journal "The natives last night saw an electric spark in the atmosphere...the natives of Cape Portland call it Nuyina".
Nick Gales: Today is all about you guys, it's all about congratulating you for coming up with a brilliant new name for our icebreaker Nuyina.
Schoolgirl: It's just been an incredible, amazing once in a lifetime trip.
Voiceover: Noy-yee-nah, Nuyina
Rob Bryson: The H.A.T. represents the first time that we're powering up all the systems on the ship. The ship finally comes to life.
Hon Sussan Ley MP - Minister for the Environment: Everyone involved in this project can take great pride in their contribution to the development of a vessel that has set a new world benchmark in polar science capability.
Kim Ellis – AAD Director: There's a palpable excitement now in the Antarctic Division and in fact in the whole Antarctic community that this ship is only a couple of months away from arriving in Hobart. It will be the most complete and powerful scientific research vessel in the ocean when it arrives here. And when you come to Hobart the thing you will want to see is Australia's icebreaker, Nuyina.
(ship horn)
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Antarctic Flagship
Video transcript
A very exciting day for Australia and it's a very exciting day for Dutch Australian relations too that it's sailing off to Australia having been built by these major ship builders Damen and I think I'm just thrilled by it.
It's one of our babies, so it will always remain our baby, but she has to go to sea, she has to go and work for the Antarctic Division with Serco.
It's a monumental occasion to take delivery of a brand new icebreaker that's been custom designed and built for the Australian Antarctic Program. It's really special. It's day one in some ways of a 30 or possibly 40 year life span.
It makes me very proud to be an Australian that we've got this vessel, and that we're going to be able to do so much with it, and I just want to wish all those scientists and crew who will be working on it all the best for the future. You will be able to make a great contribution to the world with it.
Everyone involved in this project can take great pride in their contribution to the development of a vessel that has set a new world benchmark in polar science capability.
I'm sure it'll be doing things, you know 20 years from now, that we haven't even thought of yet.
That's the really exciting part, just like there'll be Australian seafarers serving on the ship that haven't even been born yet. It's kind of fun to think of that.
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Hide and seek with giants
Video transcript
It's almost like finding a needle in a haystack, which is unbelievable considering how large those animals are.
We deploy satellite tags onto large whales, and we also take biopsy samples from large whales, and both these techniques can give us data streams that are critical to the conservation and management of whales.
So essentially we wouldn't have to put people in a small boat in the Southern Ocean, we'd simply be flying the drone above the whale.
Three, two, one.
Three, two, one.
So we're going to calculate velocity, force of impact and look at the flight path.
There's only ever two tags been put out on an Antarctic blue whale, so that gives you an idea of how difficult it is. So obviously Antarctic blue whales are incredibly hard to find in the first place, they're an endangered species, there's only a few thousand down in Antarctica.
The work that we do is always challenging, always interesting, so it's not hard to get up every day and do the job that we do, because we work on some really interesting animals, we use some really interesting techniques to answer our questions. So, it's a lot of fun actually.
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Saving Seabirds
Video transcript
Dr Barbara Wienecke: I can't understand anybody who doesn't feel deeply deeply moved by these beautiful beautiful birds, who really spend so much of their life in the air without beating a wing. It's extraordinary.
Dr Graham Robertson: I don't think I've ever seen a group of animals so beautiful. You could see an albatross on a nest and it's so impeccable that if you imagine if there's a small ant crawling up its breast you think I must brush that off, it's just spoiling the image.
Dr Barbara Wienecke: And you just look at these absolutely perfect birds, just dead and there's nothing you can do. Not for them anymore at least. You know so that it really it really motivates you to think, you know how, how can we make the fishing safe.
When the small divers hit the water and they probably focus on a particular bait in front of them and and follow it. But because the line is moving so fast what they don't realise is that there is a hook behind them.
Dr Jaimie Cleeland: When that egg hatches it takes quite a long time before the chick fledges and that chick may be at sea for between five to fifteen years before it will return to the colony and breed again. So any increase in the population may only be seen between five and fifteen years down the track.
Dr Graham Robertson: I mainly focused on methods to expedite the sink rate of the baited hooks in the upper reaches of the water column, and sort of applied that through all the main commercial longline fisheries that take seabirds in the world. Just work through them all systematically.
Longline fishery in the CCAMLR convention area, that's the Southern Ocean, is albatross friendly and has been for a long time and I'd say that's probably the global best practice. I can't think of a better example.
When you work in trying to change a fishing practice, or any form of primary industry I suppose, where people are making their living, it ain't easy to make changes.
Dr Jaimie Cleeland: We know albatrosses don't abide by geopolitical boundaries and they cross wide ocean basins and so those threats are uneven through the ocean. And that means that we're not actually seeing huge improvements at the breeding colony just yet.
Dr Kim Kliska: Decades of conservation and monitoring work here on Macquarie Island by the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service, the Australian Antarctic Division and DPIPWE, are paying off. Threatened seabirds have begun to recover here since the vertebrate pests were eradicated on this World Heritage listed island in 2014. On Macquarie Island we have four species of albatross and lots of different seabirds, and since the eradication the habitat for all these species has improved, with the tussocks returning to the slopes and the vegetation growing. The black-browed albatross that was listed as endangered is now considered to be of least concern. But these species still face threats because a large part of their life is lived at sea in places that are really hard to protect.
Dr Jaimie Cleeland: I hope that we can continue to work together across fisheries management, across island conservation, and with our climate change strategies, to really create a better world for albatross.
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