Happy and healthy expeditioners

Mawson's Doctor - Marissa Woodburn - reflects on the first few weeks on station

When faced with the opportunity to work and live in one of the most beautiful places on earth, one starts to dream about icebergs, penguins and auroras. So far, Antarctica has delivered.

While Mawson has been our home for only a short time, we’ve already been treated to beautiful views across Horseshoe Harbour, dozens of Weddell seals lazing about the station, the occasional whale and Emperor penguin and a few cranky Adélie’s. The Red Shed itself is warm and homely, with enough activity to keep us busy during our precious downtime.

As we all come down off an adrenaline-filled first few weeks, most of us are settling into routines and working through the aftermath of a busy resupply. For me, that means ferrying loads of boxes between the green store and the medical facility, and then setting to work to ensure fresh medical supplies are ready as needed for the coming year. Throw in some essential medical facility maintenance tasks, a few medical reviews and some core training, and a week quickly slips away from you.

The months ahead will be filled with more of the same. I look forward to working with a team of Lay Surgical Assistants who have bravely put themselves forward to assist in the (hopefully very unlikely) event of a medical emergency. I’m humbly reminded each time I set foot on the continent of how lucky I am to work in such a unique environment under the expert guidance of the Polar Medicine Unit; and how much longer everything takes here compared to the real world!

Fortunately for us, creature comforts are available in abundance, with our past week’s hard work concluding with an amazing semi-formal dinner on the weekend. Our exceptionally skilled chef delivered beyond expectations, producing a delicious three-course menu. It’s been a wonderful start to our year at Mawson, here’s looking forward to a safe and successful season.

Marissa (Mawson Doc)

Survival Training kicks off

With procedures now in place to safely operate beyond station limits, our focus turns to training all our expeditioners in the skills required to travel and survive up on the ice plateau that majestically dominates our horizon to the South!

Firstly however, our skilled plant operator, Greg, took the Caterpillar dozer along the initial uphill slope to scar the ice and create a roughened surface. Over summer, the melting of the top layer of the ice has made the surface relatively smooth. This makes it difficult for even the capable rubber tracks of our Hägglunds vehicles to gain enough grip. Therefore, additional traction is provided by etching the ice, allowing easy access up the incline.

Our Field Training Officer, Dave, took advantage of a clear weather window and gathered the first group of three eager expeditioners. Alby, Scott, and Jess collected their personal field packs, group survival and field equipment (such as stoves and medical kits), a generous amount of protein bars and other snacks from the kitchen, and headed out with Dave in the Blue Hägg to Rumdoodle Hut, about 20km South of Mawson in the North Masson Range.

After being taken through the basic rules of survival and demonstrations on how to use their equipment, they had some time to explore the area around the hut – especially the beautiful patterns made in the ice of Rumdoodle Lake. As the sun finally started to set, it was time to get closely acquainted with their survival bivvy bags – colloquially referred to as 'chip packets' because of the noise the material makes in the wind – and lock themselves in their sleeping bags for the night. Amazingly, due perhaps to the mild weather, a couple of the team suggested they had a better night's sleep than back in their beds!

Cat (Mawson SL)

on