A Macquarie Island Station tour in photos

It's hard to imagine what day to day life is like living on one of the AAD (Australian Antarctic Division) research stations. The best I can do to describe it, is that it's a bit like living in a university hostel, or on a school camp. 

The fourteen winterers each have our own bedrooms, but other than that all our spaces are shared - bathroom, kitchen, living area, laundry.

In Antarctica the bedrooms are joined to the living areas and kitchen, so you only have to go outside to get to the workshops and warehouse. On Macquarie Island, all the buildings are separated (with almost 50 individual buildings in total) so you spend a large proportion of your day putting on and taking off gumboots.

Despite all this effort with footwear, the black sand that the station is built on manages to get everywhere!

Here is Macquarie Island Research Station in photos:

Besides cheesy photo ops, the station gate is meant to keep full grown elephant seals out of the main station area. It sounds like its success is variable at best; we've already had a few adolescents come visit. The beach masters are out at sea until later in the year.

Just inside the gate is 'Market Square'. It sounds a lot nicer than it really is (a muddy, sandy, windswept space in the middle of all the main buildings). There is sadly no market. And its more of a triangle really.

On one side of Market Square is the double-storied MPB (multi-purpose building). This is home to the chippie's workshop and electrician's workshop downstairs, and the trades offices, field store, gym and library/cinema upstairs. The Nissen Hut next to the MPB is one of the oldest buildings on station - at one time rows of Nissen Huts made up half the station. This one is called the Post Office, but really it just houses the dress up collection, station instruments, pool table, and a collection of other items with no real home.

The field store aka FTO land (FTO being field training officer, the person tasked with training us all to survive the great outdoors). FTO land is like a camping and hiking store, except everything has been used a few times. It's also free, but you have to give it all back.

The library/cinema/computer room/yoga studio. One of the most hotly contested rooms on station. Most AAD stations  have a number of different rooms for these purposes, but here at Macca everything is on a slightly smaller scale.

Tim's favourite place, the chippie's workshop. It has been OCD'd to the max with everything in tiny labelled draws. Very pleasing. It also smells nice - like wood chips.

Alongside the MPB is the Green Store. For some reason the AAD always calls its warehouses 'green stores' and hence they are always painted green. This is where we keep all the building supplies, equipment and food for the year.

Inside the Green Store - downstairs is the serious stuff, upstairs is where the alcohol and annual chocolate supply are kept.

'Woolies' - the area in the Green Store where we can help ourselves to as many toiletries as we want. I brought a lot of my own stuff, although in the great mystery of the year, my entire supply of conditioner is MIA. Sadly the quality of the AAD-supplied conditioner leaves a lot to be desired. Thank god I'll spend most of the year wearing a hat.

The dairy - brings a whole new meaning to "we're out of milk, can you pick some up". This is also where the almost-didn't-make-it cheese is stored. There are 5 of these enormous fridges where all of our food is stored.

On the other side of Market Square is the mess, with the medical facility at the left end, kitchen and dining room in the middle, and living area and bar on the right end

The Macca Kitchen, a 'touch' smaller than the other stations, it's still got all the whiz bang gadgets, it just gets a bit crowded when there are more than 2 people working in it.

Looking towards the kitchen from the living area. The photos along the right side wall are all the wintering station groups since the 1950s.

And from the other direction. You can see how 70 people got a bit tight. The illustrious 'Crabbe Inn' is the Macca bar - the face of it is clad with barrel staves from one of the many historic shipwrecks around the island - they still wash up regularly.

Facing the mess is Hass House, the dorm-style accommodation block for most of the winterers. In a slightly odd and inequitable situation, the double-storey building on the right is Cumston's Cottage, where the station leader, chef, doctor (and lucky carpenter) each have a rather non dorm-style bedroom. In an even more guilt-provoking situation, Tim and I get the bedroom on the top right of the cottage (the one with the balcony and amazing view....)

The view from our bedroom - looking over Garden Bay where the surf rolls in, and orcas frequent during pup season. Garden Cove is the building to the right - one of the accomodation blocks for summerers (ie. more crappy than accommodation for winterers). SAD ('Summer Accomodation Dormitory') is not pictured, but the name says it all. Horror.

The station is split into two by the isthmus. This is just outside the station gate, looking across the isthmus to where the other half of station is. This includes the Communications Building is (next to the giant dome which is our satellite link with the outside world), as well as the Meteorological Building, various science laboratories, the mechanics workshop and a large number of tiny wooden shacks which have all been part of various science projects over the last 60 or so years. The isthmus is full of wild life - you can see a few penguins here - as it is only only flat land on the entire island, so is used by lots of animals as a transit point from the east to the west.

The farthest end of station from where we live; the machinery shed on the left and the old boat shed and LARC on the left. A typical Macca day with less then 100m visibility.

Moving slightly closer to our living area, the Nissen Hut on the left is the only other one left on station, and houses a rather eclectic range of 'heritage items'. This includes bits of washed up shipwreck, items from whaling and sealing days, and a large number of bits of wood which may or may not be of historical significance.

And finally the Met buildings - with their office on the left and the balloon shed on the left (where they release a hydrogen filled balloon twice a day to take all sorts of very important but slightly lost-on-me weather readings)

Worst case scenarios and way too much sugar

Resupply over, the last week has been all about getting trained up to deal with whatever Macca might throw at us in a worse case scenario - fire, tsunami, medical disaster or a search and rescue. Although to be honest, the biggest risks around here seem to be morbid obesity through over-eating, or getting chased by one of the very territorial fur seals who hide around station.

Given it was another busy week, Easter popped up at a fortuitous interval. We spent the four-day holiday eating sugar in a range of forms, checking out some of the local characters, generally mooching about, then varying mooching about by adding in Bananagrams and/or cheese boards. An excellent break all round.

The week began with a Tsunami Drill - this principally involved hauling oneself up a very steep hill as quickly as possible. My favourite type of activity. Thank god it came before Easter.

Short rest breaks were required by some, while others took a lot of photos to necessitate frequent stops. Macca delivered her usual weather - drizzle, wind and limited visibility. Although you can make out a couple of buildings on station.

The Tsunami Cache at the top of Wireless Hill- the Cache mainly consists of tents, expired rations and XXL clothing, and is conveniently located in a very mushy bog. Lets all hope for no tsunamis.

Back on station, we get kitted out with survival bags and search & rescue gear. From left: Tim (carpenter), Annette (chef), Danielle (Meteorological observer), Angus (Meteorological technician), someone bending down in high vis (a common outfit which makes the wearer hard to identify), Vicki (another Met observer), Richard (our field training officer (FTO)/search and rescue leader/storeman/several other things depending on the day)

The fire crew gear up and wrangle hoses in their first training session of the year

Hosing down the concrete paths. Lovely job.

The exiting expeditioners left quite a bit of washing - I did 32 loads one Saturday,  then had to stop as we were about to run out of water. Space in the linen cupboard was also a slight issue - this motherland is stacked in one of the summer accomodation bedrooms. Reminds me of university hall of residence accommodation. Except I only had one set of sheets.

Tim moonlighting as the station barber. Danielle had requested a 'shoulder length cut', she ended up with a jaw-line do and some very interesting lady-sideburns....

Ali, our station leader, makes convincingly real easter eggs out of marshmallow

And Bananagrams has made it to Macquarie Island - just another racy Easter Saturday night on station for (L-R) Rich, Danielle, Annette and Angus (note the crosswords too).

In another corner of the wallow (common room), Tim, Chris B (diesel mechanic) and Chris H (Head Ranger) enjoy a cheese platter and some civilised chatter.

Tim's birthday came right after Easter. Forgetting the timing I made a double-decker chocolate cake with a layer of chocolate cheesecake in the middle. Perhaps fruit cake would have been a better option. 

Some of our resident fur seals. These two hang out the back of the kitchen and bark at you as you walk past with a load of tea towels. The mother is currently trying to wean her pup (note the foot action).

Finally pulled my proper camera out for a walk around station: Pissed off moulting elephant seals. These ones are juveniles (a couple of years old) but are still weigh a tonne or so.

Macca on a nice day - a couple of Gentoo Penguins enjoying the sun

Gentoos up close - these are the most common penguins around station and trot all around the place keeping an eye on us