Mawson is the BOM! Whoops, I mean Mawson is the Bureau! Haha.
What an incredible place. Filled with incredible people and surrounded by incredible wildlife and scenery. Incredible. The word loses meaning with the number of times I've thought it to myself, looking out the window at the blizzard or crunching through the icy snow to photograph weddell seals on the way home from work.
It doesn't lose meaning though. After a few weeks, I anticipated the excitement dying down and for routine to mollify the experience somewhat, but the opposite seems to be true. With more things learned each day, the wonder and awe for this place are braced and built upon. I can't see when or even if my amazements keen edge will be dulled. Before I came, I spoke with past expeditioners who always seemed to yearn to return to the ice. Now I understand.
I've wanted to go to Antarctica since 2015, when I noticed that the Weather Bureau had positions advertised, with training included. I remember the feedback from the hiring manager at the time, "I don't think you could do the job". For me, that was a "challenge accepted!" moment. From that moment, I directed my entire career toward gaining the skills and experience needed to go South. I eventually joined the Bureau and focused all of my training goals toward Antarctic specific skills. After stints at two of the Bureau's other remote sites, Giles in the Gibson Desert and Willis Island in the Coral Sea, and roughly two years solid of various in-house and external training courses, I was ready.
And by golly, it was worth it.
Albert (Mawson BoM Tech)