The AAD were very obliging and allowed me to break up my flight from Broome to Tassie so I could spend a week catching up with family on the way down. Considering it would be over a year before I saw them again it seemed like the thing to do. And it was nice.

 

I rocked up at the Trinity apartment accommodation in Hobart on the 6^th of December and a new adventure started. It was my first time in Tasmania and it was at taxpayers expense. Thankyou. The apartments were twin share, I shared mine with the other plumber going to Mawson. His name was Eddie and he’d arrived that day as well. Half my age and half as good looking, we hit it off well and both couldn’t believe our luck in getting such an amazing opportunity. Even more so when we later discovered we were the only two plumbers out of the hundreds to apply that got a 12 month job in Antarctica that season. The next day we headed out to the AAD complex out at Kingston. We were to spend the next seven weeks or so out there getting trained up for our expedition. The complex was amazing, the training amazing, being part of it all was amazing. Let’s just call it all amazing. We met most of the other 12 people we would spend the next year with and fortunately they all seemed nice. Eddie and I just kept shaking our heads and saying “is this all real?

“As my first real job I guess everyone feels the same way on their first day at work?

 

 

Day 1 also included getting security passes and kitted out for our year away. The best way to explain it is if you walked into Kathmandu and walked around the store and they just kept piling all the best stuff into your arms and then said check all that fits and then come back for the next lot. Thousands of dollars worth of clothes, footwear and safety gear. Eddie and I just kept shaking our heads and smiling. Once we were totally overwhelmed and overdressed we just walked out without having to pay. My type of shopping. We do have to give a lot of it back when we return but it’s not really the sort of stuff you’d want to wear in Broome anyway.

 

 

The training was either plumbing related or Antarctic Station community related. The plumbing training involved some cool stuff like operating equipment like the JCB telehandler which is basically a combination crane, forklift and loader. We learned how to service/fix obscure things like dental chairs, fume cupboards, autoclaves and breathing apparatus. We did days of confined space training, working at heights and using breathing apparatus. We did computer stuff, slept through power point presentations (not sure if I was supposed to do that?) and safety related training. And best of all we were paid to do it.

 

 

The Antarctic Station community training was just as exciting. We did almost a week of fire training with the Tassie Fire Brigade. Real training in real gear and real fire! We played with real fire trucks, hoses, pumps and fire extinguishers. Don’t ever ever ever throw water on a fat/oil fire. We did remote first aid for a few days up in the hills and quad bike training in the bush and got paid for that too! We did have to endure some power point presentations and a few sessions with butchers paper but hey, you need a bit of nap time. We had lots of access to experts who told us about auroras and penguins and ice.

 

 

Most of us were staying at the same apartments so we were together quite often. There are 14 of us in total that will be down there for the whole year.

 

2 Plumbers

 

2 Sparkies

 

2 Diesel Mechanics

 

1 Carpenter

 

2 Met guys (Bureau of Meteorology)

 

1 Comms (Communications)

 

1 Chef

 

1 Doctor (doubles as a dentist and surgeon)

 

1 FTO (Field Training Officer) Kiwi  female

 

1 Station leader (female)

 

Our ages range from mid twenties to mid sixties and there were 4 of us who’d never been before while others had been south once or several times and worked at most or all of the other stations.

 

We had 10 days off over the Xmas period and then got ready to set sail on the 25^th of January. Zoe and Tara flew down to spend the weekend with me before we left which was lovely and I think a little more settling for them (me). I managed to squeeze in a few hash runs, check out the end of the Sydney Hobart yacht race, catch up with a few friends and do some sightseeing in Tassie before we left. On the evening of the 25^th of January we sailed out of Hobart on the Aurora Australis for what would be about 17 days at sea.