Going Home (part 1 of 4)
July 2001

In late February 2001 the MV Polar Bird arrived in Horseshoe Harbour for the annual resupply. The arrival of the MV Polar Bird marked the last great milestone of my Antarctic adventure and the start of the trip home after living at Mawson for 499 days.

The MV Polar Bird in Horseshoe Harbour during resupply 2001.

In the weeks leading up to the arrival of the MV Polar Bird I had been packing all my belongings into cardboard boxes and tying up any loose ends. I was amazed how my personal belongings slowly distributed themselves across the station, in Aeronomy, in my room, or scattered about other places. All the parcels for things that I had bought as well as the gifts I had received added to what I already had. I was sure I didn’t have this much stuff when I arrived!

In parallel with packing and finishing work tasks I made sure I went out on a few short day trips to some of my favourite places around Mawson. By visiting my favourite places with some of my friends I wanted to say some last goodbyes and to reflect on all the places I had been and all the things I had done. There were just so many places to go and savour the moments. Mt Henderson was my favourite field hut with a window that looked 50km down the coast to the Colbeck Archipelago or I could admire the majestic view from behind MT Parsons. I could spend a quiet few nights on Bechervaise Island amongst the Adelie penguin rookery or spend an afternoon climbing the mountains of the Northern Masson Range. Just off the coast from Mawson was another favourite place, Welch Island, which offered inspiring 360 degree views of the plateau, east and west along the coast and out to sea.

Some of the 1000’s of Adelie penguins on Welch Island

Since the sea ice was long gone, Rhonda, Garry and I arranged to be dropped off on Welch Island by the ‘Seeka’ workboat. To get to the top we had to walk carefully through a huge colony of Adelie penguins and then up a ridge to the top of the island, 129m above sea level.

At the top I climbed up the cairn and soaked up the visual feast before me. All above me was the brilliant blue sky, around me was the deep blue sea and in the distance was the seemingly endless white ice of the plateau stretching away into the distance to the South Pole. On the horizon to the east I could see the hundreds of icebergs that surround the Auster Rookery and to the west I could just make out the Islands of the Colbeck Archipelago. There seemed like there could be no more beautiful place on earth to be and I felt a deep sense of satisfaction that I had made the most of my time there but at the same time I felt sad because I was unlikely to be able to return for another winter. Back on station while I was packing I often thought back to the day I arrived in October 1999 when I got out of the helicopter and slowly walked up the road to the red shed gazing in amazement at the buildings and trying to comprehend my new surroundings.

Revelling in the wide open spaces on the top of Welch Island.

But now, everything at Mawson looked so familiar as if it had been burned into my brain. In the last few months it had become hard to appreciate things that I had looked at and lived with for so long. The ice cliffs in East and West Bays were as spectacular as they had ever been but I realised that I had lost the instant sense of wonder and awe I had when I first arrived. I was saddened that I had lost the ability to appreciate my immediate surroundings and I often tried hard through photography to appreciate where I was. The more I thought, the more I realised that there was only one solution – to go home.

Email continues in part 2