This week at Mawson: 27 January 2023

Summer Funner... Is that a saying? Well it is now.

Summer is in full swing here at Mawson station and for the so-called 'windy station' we’ve had a whole lot of beautiful bluebird days. Most of the station's residents have been making the most of it by getting on top of outside work and squeezing in recreational trips after work, or on the weekend where possible. This week saw us getting out to the site of a Russian aircraft crash.

The plane, a Russian equivalent of a Dakota DC3 had arrived on the plateau behind Mawson station in December 1968 to deliver a fuel cache to the Rumdoodle airstrip, which gets used as a secondary airstrip when the sea ice is not suitable for landing. Mawson station was frequently used as a refuelling stop between the two Russian Antarctic bases Mirny and Molodyezhnaya. Whilst taxiing down the Rumdoodle airstrip, a strong gust of wind caught the plane and blew it into a crevasse, damaging the starboard wing and propeller. All of the crew were rescued, but the plane had been damaged beyond repair. It is now one of the many reminders of past exploration and the dynamic environment we live and work in.

In preparation for our visit to the aircraft we first attended an evening information and training session led by our Field Training Officer, which consisted of the basics of how crevasses form, how to travel safely through crevasse fields, and some basic rope skills necessary for the trip.

The trip saw us rope up in two separate teams for crevasse travel and meander our way through the crevasse field to the aircraft. We lucked in with another bluebird day.

The aircraft has been of inspiration to some expeditioners in the past and a replica of the wing was built on station by some talented individuals for a table top, perfect for summer BBQs out the front of the Carpenters Workshop, dubbed 'Rosella' for it’s colours.

Andy Redman, Carpenter

Sight - I’m not sure anything prepares you for the sheer vastness of Antarctica. The never ending white and blue ice stretching as far as the eyes can see, occasionally broken up with a mountain range just poking above the plateau ice. Although most of the mountain range stands 1500m above sea level, only a few hundred metres of the peaks stick out above the ice sheet.

Sound - It’s summer here on Mawson station and with that brings beautiful bluebird days and warmer weather. The warmer weather brings on the melt, and as the sea ice slowly starts to melt you get cracks forming. If you take a minute to sit by the ice/water’s edge you hear this beautiful symphony of the ice sheets colliding, cracking and melting. It’s gentle and mesmerising and if it doesn’t exist as some sort of playlist for relaxing, it should.

Taste - Food always tastes better when you’re camping, so when you go camping in Antarctica it is Deeee-licious. We’re fortunate to have an amazing chef here at Mawson who keeps us well fed and doesn’t let much go to waste. A lot of the leftovers from dinner get cryovaced, which makes cooking whilst camping a breeze. It’s hard to put my finger on any singular taste to represent my experience.

Smell - I’ve heard rumours that when you travel back from Antarctica on the ship you can smell my home state of Tassie from two days away. They say you can smell the eucalyptus in the air. This reinforces that there aren’t a lot of natural smells down here on the ice, which is a curious sense to have subdued by the landscape. Ice and rock doesn’t have a smell as far as I am aware. But the sweet sweet smell of Chef's croissants on a Saturday morning provide a level of familiarity and comfort.

Feeling - What a tough sense to summarise and put into words. There’s so many emotions that are felt on the journey to get here, and while being here. I feel a deep sense of achievement and accomplishment for having been one of the few lucky humans to get to call this place home for a little while, and contribute to the science of the Australian Antarctic Program through my skill set of carpentry. I’ve had a pretty incredible journey to get here, in the lead up for sure, but specifically the transit to the continent, travelling via ship across the Southern Ocean, then getting on a small plane that takes off and lands on the frozen ocean. I specifically remember this overwhelming feeling when I was sitting on the Twin Otter flying from Davis station to Mawson station. I was looking out across the vast landscape and out to the horizon where there was a colour palette in the sky that I have never witnessed before. It was the most fantastic hues of orange, purple and blue, mixed in with the white and blue ice below. It was the start of my journey on the continent and a climax of a life of choices and adventures that led me to this point. I think I wept tears of joy and some other emotions I can’t even put into words.

Andy Redman, Carpenter