Hobart

Ok, so this was really the start of my adventure down south. Well if you exclude all the stuff before this, which did take a few months. So really this was not the start of my adventure down south, however all that other stuff is pretty boring, so for the purpose of this blog we will call Hobart the start of my adventure down south.

There I am, off a plane on my way to the apartments I will be staying in for the next two months while I get ready to go to Antarctica. All the apartments where I was staying were twin share. This meant that I was sharing with another expeditioner (that is what they call or us people heading down south). It turned out I was sharing with a guy called Ian. He is a plant inspector (basically head mechanic) heading to Mawson. This is a different base to Davis where I am heading (well at already now)

The view from my appartment over Mt Wellington

Training

The first week or so involved a general getting to know they Antarctic Division, and a general introduction to what was going on and what was expected of us as employees of the commonwealth public service.
I am heading down to Antarctica as a communications technician, so after that I moved into a month or so of telecommunications training.
Some of the topics that were covered included:
Microsoft active directory and exchange training.
How to fix photocopiers.
How to fix the x-ray machine (yes that is the type the doctor's use).
Rescue from radio towers.
Phone systems, satellites, radios.
Marine Radio Licenses
Pretty much a brief run through of most of the stuff that we will be using in Antarctica. Not too in depth as I guess they have picked people who can work it out as they go.
You might think, hang on, surely Nichol already knows some of this stuff, and you would be right. It was still good to get a feel for how the Antarctic division implemented things, as well as getting to know the other comms technicians heading to Antarctica.
After this we moved on to general training, this was not focused on any Technical training related to communications, but on things we might or would need to know in Antarctica.
Fork Lifts
Search and Rescue
Confined spaces access as well as general survival skills.
There was also a day of firefighting. A fire team was selected that completed an 8 day course including using Breathing Apparatus, but I said I would be more interested in doing search and rescue, so unfortunately I was not able to go on that course.

Tower Climbing

Fire Training

Ancillary Roles

During this time we also had meetings of everybody going to Davis to get to know everybody and work out who would do the ancillary roles. Ancillary roles (also known as secondary roles or community roles) are the roles that are not your main job, but that need doing for the station to keep working well.
I am the brew master (YAY), this means I am in charge of making sure the home brew production keeps running well. I am also the hairdresser, this means I had to do a half day Tafe course on haircutting.
Myself and two others are also in charge of amenities. This is all the fun items around the station such as movies, ping pong, cards and board games, and generally little things like that.
Out of work time

You might wonder what happened after work and on weekends (and why I couldn't post this earlier). Well, it was actually pretty busy. A lot of time was spent socializing. It seemed that something was happening nearly every night. With so many people all staying in the same area, all on the same boat of not really knowing anyone a pretty big social calendar formed.
It may have just been going to the pub for a beer, having dinner or watching a movie in somebody's apartment or going out on the town.
We did some big trips too, such as Hastings caves with the other comms guys, or walking at Fortescue Bay with the weather forecasters.
Clarissa also came down for a few times and spent some time with me.
There was also the seemingly endless task of making sure that I had everything ready that I would need for the next year.

Bushwalking with Manfred the weather forcaster