Antarctic expeditioners to return to Australia after a year on the ice

Dozens of Antarctic expeditioners at Casey Station are preparing to head home to Australia after spending the past year working on the icy continent.

Transcript

00:00Casey Station is the largest of Australia's three permanent bases here in Antarctica and right now

00:08there's about a hundred people on site including Deputy Station Leader Saurabh Das. Saurabh thanks

00:14for joining us. Can you give us a little bit of an overview of what goes on here at Casey Station

00:19on a daily basis? Yeah definitely thanks Shano and it's great to have you on the team here. The

00:24primary purpose for us being here is to deliver on Antarctic science to understand how Antarctica

00:29fits into the global climate system. To do that there's a lot of moving parts and you've seen

00:34that over the last couple of days we have two airstrips we have our international airstrips

00:39moving people in and out of the continent we have our domestic terminal which moves people to the

00:44other stations and makes them like it moves them through our Casey here. As you can see here at

00:51Casey Station there's a few there's a few moving parts we have a full township here that we run

00:56down at the wharf we accept boats we run resupply we bring in new stock as it comes through. Behind us

01:04is the red shed this is where we live and breathe all day every day it's our beds it's our showers

01:08and toilets it has all of the common spaces or common areas that we work and live in so the kitchen

01:14the mess. Upstairs we have a lounge area we have our library we have places where we can sit have a cup

01:20cup of tea and let our hair down at the end of the day. Off to the left here we have the the green shed

01:26that's our Bunnings it's our Woolies it's really our store that feeds the entire station and then off

01:32to the right we have our ops building really the nerve center it's where Justine and I spend a lot

01:36of our time it's where our comms team are it's where our weather forecasters and Bureau of Meteorology

01:42observers are as well. Further down that way we have the science building where our scientists all

01:46congregate plan their days and get out into Antarctica to continue their good work.

01:51It's you clearly articulated just how complex it is to run a place like this it can be the weather

01:57can change there can be blizzards coming through what is it that attracts people to live and work

02:03in a place like Casey Station? Yeah thanks Jano that's it's an extraordinary place to work so for me

02:09it's always come down to amazing people working and doing amazing things doing extraordinary things

02:15together in one of the most beautiful parts of the world and it really is one of those beautiful

02:20places where you do forge a great team for an extraordinary period of time and really come

02:25together as a unit in Antarctica. And at the moment there's some of the expeditioners are about to

02:33finish up their year-long deployment here at the same time as a bunch of new people are coming in

02:39to start a very long-term stint here there must be a mix of emotions going on. Yeah definitely the 78th

02:45Nare the one team that have been here for 12 to 13 months they have been here they've put in a lot

02:51of love and effort is their home they've it's been a beautiful thing to watch they have really taken the

02:57station and left it in a better place for us and we really appreciate that we also understand that

03:03they're tired whilst we have this new burst of energy of the 79th Nare rocking up flying in over

03:09the last couple of weeks eager excited making mistakes all over the place learning from the 78th

03:14it's incumbent on us to take the great work that they've done really add to it and again deliver

03:20the program and leave the station in a better place at the end of the year. All right thank you

03:24for sharing that Saurab. So Casey Station will remain at capacity over the next few months during summer

03:30before scaling back and they'll remain about 30 people who will stay here until this time next year.