It's hard to believe that it was 54 weeks ago that I arrived at Davis station with all the feelings of excitement and wonder that I now see so clearly in the new team that arrived this week.
Before we sign out as the 21/22 team (75th ANARE) and step foot on our ride home, the good ship Aiviq, we need to make sure that the new team is ready. Well, as ready as they can be in less than a week!
The lead up to this week has been an emotional rollercoaster with Antarctica throwing every challenge at us including harsh weather conditions affecting aviation and a cargo ship just teasing us by heading towards Davis only to turn around for repairs.
But this week we pulled off what some would describe as impossible. Multiple flights between our three Antarctic stations Casey, Davis and Mawson to move people around making sure all stations had enough support at all times just in case Antarctica had other plans.
We have also unloaded a number of refrigerated shipping containers of food and taken on over 650K litres of fuel to keep the station warm for another year. Now just 200K litres of water to come ashore via truck and we can finally load a container of our personal effects and the team ready to depart for home.
Most of us started this journey in August last year with training in Hobart (and couldn't go home because of COVID restrictions) so it will be 16 months since we have seen our loved ones by the time we get home in mid December and while I can confidently say this has been the most incredible professional and personal journey, I'm ready to go home... for a day or two hopefully before I head to Bali for a relaxing warm holiday.
Thanks for making these memories with me Team Davis, the 75th ANARE. I couldn't have asked for better humans to spend this year with.
Dani Yannopoulos
Station Leader out x
