With only a week to go here at Mawson our winter is about to end. Five wintering expeditioners will leave the station soon, and about 22 summerers will fly in. For those going home they will need to be retrained for dealing with some things they generally haven’t dealt with for a while. This includes rain, crowds, heavy traffic, pets, kids, lawyers and money!
Some of us (who are very slowly packing to leave) discovered our dusty unused wallets recently, and realised we will need to use these funny coloured plastic notes called “money” in about a month’s time.
Having done a few winters previously, I can recall going back to Hobart and on my first night back I went to a bar, ordered a beer, walked away and forgot to pay for it. The local barman who had worked on the Hobart waterfront for a while had seen this scenario before — wintering expeditioners who desperately needed re-training on how to use money, and to remember to pay for things! They don’t run courses for that!
Sometimes we forget how lucky we are to have many of the usual things we need from day-to-day automatically provided for us — and mostly for free. The AAD does a pretty good job with providing most of the things we need (with a few minor exceptions). Ignoring some of the things that occasionally run out over winter, we can go shopping here and get nearly all our daily needs without needing to pull out the wallet or credit card.
Here are some examples:- Shopping at Woollies, for all those personal items
- Our hardware store is great — has all of the essentials — but you MUST ask the tradies first! They’ll even help you with your requirements.
- Vegetables are very seasonal here — only the potatoes are on special this month!
- Clothing store — not a lot of variety or style — but very bright colours this season and the prices are unbelievable. Customer service is excellent.
- The best supermarket in town — no weekly specials, but prices are down, down, down! Customer service is excellent.