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Speaker 1: We'd like to acknowledge that traditional custodians of the land

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Speaker 1: on which this podcast was produced, the Galliger people of

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Speaker 1: the orination. We pay our respects to Elder's past and present.

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Speaker 2: It's the ninth of November twenty nineteen and David Knof

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Speaker 2: has been at sea for two weeks. He's on an

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Speaker 2: icebreaker's ship that's tediously making its final slow approach to Antarctica.

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Speaker 2: He's here to take over the role of station leader

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Speaker 2: at the Davis Research Station. He's thousands of kilometers from

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Speaker 2: home in one of the world's harshest environments. Wis there

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Speaker 2: He'll experience hargh Gane force winds, freezing temperatures, and total

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Speaker 2: darkness for six months of the year. But he's grinning

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Speaker 2: from ear to ear. He's finally made it. But what

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Speaker 2: was meant to be a routine mission lasting just one

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Speaker 2: year was thrown into uncertainty when the COVID nineteen pandemic hit,

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Speaker 2: leaving David and his team stranded in one of the

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Speaker 2: most isolated places in the world. I'm at Middleton and

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Speaker 2: this is head Game Today, a story of remote leadership, insurance,

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Speaker 2: and humanity during a time of absolute uncertainty. David Enuff.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to my podcast, head game Mate. Now, before we start,

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Speaker 2: I just got to ask how old are you?

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Speaker 3: That's an interesting first question.

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Speaker 2: Nine thirty nine?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, wow, well.

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Speaker 2: Thirty nine mate, You've had quite the career and I'm

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Speaker 2: going to reel off a few things. You graduated from

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Speaker 2: Monash University with a bachelor's of Art. Whilst completing officer

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Speaker 2: training in the Australian Army. You served in the Solomon

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Speaker 2: Islands as an infantry platoon commander in two thousand and seven.

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Speaker 2: Following this, you joined the Australians Department of Foreign Affairs

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Speaker 2: and Trade. Is that defact correct? Serving at the Australian

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Speaker 2: High Commission in Islamabad, Pakistan. And then you decided to

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Speaker 2: join the Australian Antarctic Program as station leader at the

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Speaker 2: Davis Research Station. Mate, for the age of thirty nine,

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Speaker 2: you have car talk about a resume too. I thought

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Speaker 2: I'd done a lot, so let's unravel this. Let's unpick

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Speaker 2: it because it's fascinating me and it's first and foremost

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Speaker 2: good to speak to one of my own. Let's start

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Speaker 2: from the beginning. I suppose what made you want to

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Speaker 2: join the military, and do you come from a military background,

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Speaker 2: of military family, not.

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Speaker 4: From a military family other than sort of some Second

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Speaker 4: World War grandfathers, like everyone had. There was no real

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Speaker 4: drive other than at the end of my first year

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Speaker 4: of university, I'm like, this isn't enough, this is just

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Speaker 4: not exciting enough. And I joined the Army reserv or

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Speaker 4: the territorials or National Guard or whatever it is in

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Speaker 4: the different nations, and straight away, like a a kind

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Speaker 4: of horse.

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Speaker 3: To water, I'm like, this is this is what I want.

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Speaker 3: This is more exciting.

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Speaker 4: It's out, it's adventurous, it's leadership, it's all these other things.

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Speaker 4: And thankfully I joined when I was nice and youngster's

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Speaker 4: only nineteen. Then a couple of years a year or

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Speaker 4: so through officer training and the strange thing I lead

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Speaker 4: that platoon I led over in the Solon Islands back

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Speaker 4: in two thousand and seven. I was the second youngest

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Speaker 4: guy in the platoon as the platoon commander, which outside

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Speaker 4: of the military sounds ridiculous, and people go, how on

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Speaker 4: earth could you be the officer and be in charge

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Speaker 4: of you have thirty soldiers, some of whom are nearly

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Speaker 4: fifty years old.

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Speaker 2: That's why I asked, mate, That's why I ask your age,

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Speaker 2: because I think it's extremely important to realize, you know,

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Speaker 2: how rare that is to have such a young platoon

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Speaker 2: officer commander as yourself, even for me and I know

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Speaker 2: the military inside out, like yourself, that's extremely young. Did

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Speaker 2: people take you seriously or did they? How did that?

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Speaker 2: How did that play out for you?

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Speaker 3: Yeah? I think that.

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Speaker 4: I mean I had a good platoon sergeant like straight

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Speaker 4: away in good NCOs. As you know, that's the one

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Speaker 4: thing that makes a young junior officer work well, is

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Speaker 4: that a they've got with there e is and don't

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Speaker 4: come in with an idea of hey, I'm in charge

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Speaker 4: with doing.

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Speaker 3: It my way, which is absolutely at the breastpeit for disaster.

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Speaker 4: It happens, has happened throughout history. So listen to my NCOs.

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Speaker 4: Trusted them and they are incredibly experienced, and they they

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Speaker 4: set me up for success.

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Speaker 3: And there was a lot of things I think, even

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Speaker 3: just the.

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Speaker 4: Delineation of the roles between all the officers and the

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Speaker 4: NCOs do when you're staying you're lane, there's stuff that.

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Speaker 3: The NCOs don't want to go to.

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Speaker 4: All the boring meetings at company and task force headquarters,

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Speaker 4: and come up with all the ox plans and do

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Speaker 4: all the reconnaissance stuff to kind of go, hey, we've

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Speaker 4: got to we're going to go to these three villages

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Speaker 4: in the coming month, and we're going to do it

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Speaker 4: this way, like they don't really want to do that.

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Speaker 3: Look, I think as well, I probably wouldn't.

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Speaker 4: Have been able to go to all war zone as

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Speaker 4: a platoon commander at that age that given that there

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Speaker 4: was a peacekeeping operation that the bar was probably a

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Speaker 4: bit lower, And so it works well to go, okay,

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Speaker 4: and then the few real live operations we had to do,

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Speaker 4: you just had this great thing. I go and do

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Speaker 4: the planning stuff with the task force or the INK

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Speaker 4: guys and work out how we're going to crack that.

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Speaker 3: None of okay, we've got to go to these village.

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Speaker 4: We're trying to look for these people and do these

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Speaker 4: things much to patrol the jungle, get inserted by helicopters

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Speaker 4: or trucks or whatever we're going to do. While the

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Speaker 4: sergeant the NCO is they're off just getting a platoon

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Speaker 4: level ready. You've given them the warning, You've given them

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Speaker 4: the kind of parameters of Okay, we're going to go

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Speaker 4: and do this So you walk out of that briefing room,

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Speaker 4: the platoon's ready to go, You give them the orders,

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Speaker 4: a little bit more battle prep to finalize it. Then

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Speaker 4: you jump in the vehicles and you drive out of

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Speaker 4: the fob and that when that's coming and I look

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Speaker 4: back and goes, geez, that was, And that's why I

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Speaker 4: never stayed in the army.

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Speaker 3: I'm like, I don't think it's going to get much

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Speaker 3: better than this.

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Speaker 4: To get operational command of a platoon at that younger age,

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Speaker 4: you kind of go oh. After that, you kind of

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Speaker 4: you come back and you end up in training command

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Speaker 4: and as a staff position, as a company to I see,

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Speaker 4: and all these other things.

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Speaker 3: You go, well, I don't know how exciting that's going

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Speaker 3: to be.

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Speaker 4: Whereas joining foreign affairs and trade, they were like, oh mate,

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Speaker 4: you we don't have kind of non operational jobs. You're

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Speaker 4: out and you can go any embassy anywhere in the world.

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Speaker 4: And everyone aways thinking why didn't you go to Paris

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Speaker 4: and Tokyo or somewhere lovely, And I'm like, no.

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Speaker 3: I don't to do that.

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Speaker 2: So how did that transition happen? So I know it

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Speaker 2: all too well. I was the same you know, I've

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Speaker 2: done three tours of Afghanistan. In my later years of

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Speaker 2: my military career, I'm a bit like you in that way.

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Speaker 2: I sort of get bored of things, you know, and

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Speaker 2: I think, what's the next thing that I need to do,

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Speaker 2: What's the next hype, what's the next big adventure or

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Speaker 2: what's the next adrenaline sort of fueled task ahead of me.

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Speaker 2: What made you transition? And was it quite a seamless transition?

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Speaker 3: It was fairly seamless.

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Speaker 4: So yeah, when I was in the Solomon Islands, we

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Speaker 4: worked closely with the embassy there and DEFAT and it

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Speaker 4: was the Regional Assistants Mission Solomon.

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Speaker 3: I was led by DEFA.

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Speaker 4: And had Federal Police and had Australia AID and all

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Speaker 4: these different organizations, and that the uniform military was just

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Speaker 4: one part of it. With of course, with the actionable art,

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Speaker 4: we'd do all the anything that the police couldn't handle,

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Speaker 4: we'd step in and do it. Always in tended with

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Speaker 4: the cops as well, But so we do a lot

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Speaker 4: of operations.

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Speaker 3: With the EMBSC and I coind thought well and at

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Speaker 3: the time I was.

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Speaker 4: Still finishing off my degree which was in history and politics,

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Speaker 4: so that was enough that was going to get me

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Speaker 4: in the front door, or at least to an interview

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Speaker 4: with them, and then having worked alongside them and seeing

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Speaker 4: what the embassy did or what embassy staff would.

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Speaker 3: Do overseas, and like that's you're actually affecting change.

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Speaker 4: You're having a closer impact on it rather than just

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Speaker 4: chasing down bad guys.

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Speaker 3: And it was as fun as that is as a twenty.

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Speaker 4: Two year old that's right up there flowing the alicopms

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Speaker 4: and stuff.

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Speaker 3: It wasn't quite fair.

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Speaker 4: And then it was a calculated, calculated, not risk, but

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Speaker 4: calculated decision around staying in the Army would have meant

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Speaker 4: the chance. And at the time, you've got to remember

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Speaker 4: back in two thousand and seven was the most operational

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Speaker 4: Australian Army you'd been almost in.

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Speaker 3: Half a century.

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Speaker 4: We had troops in this on Loon Islands, East Team

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Speaker 4: or Iraq, Afghanistan, and then the peace keeping observers and stuff.

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Speaker 4: We've got all these other places and Company in Butterworth

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Speaker 4: and all these things at the Army does. So there

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Speaker 4: was a lot going on, but it was still not guaranteed,

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Speaker 4: and it was this risk of all right, if I

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Speaker 4: go to a full time unit, you might be lucky

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Speaker 4: enough that you're on the next online battalion, you get

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Speaker 4: another trip, or you might end up just over in Afghanistan,

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Speaker 4: but in a role that.

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Speaker 3: Isn't that inspiring.

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Speaker 4: You want command, Whereas with DEFAT there was certainly a

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Speaker 4: much stronger chance or probability you're going to get to

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Speaker 4: go overseas, you're going to get to do the actual work.

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Speaker 4: And I saw that as a there's some safety elements

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Speaker 4: to it as well. You know, yes, government war's got

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Speaker 4: an excitement to it that only soldiers kind of understand of, like, well,

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Speaker 4: I wanted to go to war, which sounds ridiculous, and

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Speaker 4: yet at a point you probably would have found this

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Speaker 4: with yours, like once you get to your second or

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Speaker 4: third trips, you start to go the clock sticking at

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Speaker 4: some point or what next?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you do get to level of what nexten what's

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Speaker 2: the difference between the military and the Department of Foreign

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Speaker 2: Affairs and how you adapted to that?

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Speaker 4: Straight away, you're going from work at the tactical level

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Speaker 4: or operational level of platoon and company or even just

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Speaker 4: task force operations, switching to defact work with the embassies.

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Speaker 3: You're straight to the strategic level.

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Speaker 4: So you're working even as a fairly junior diplomat, you're

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Speaker 4: working very very very sensitive things. You're working right at

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Speaker 4: the point of end. You'll be briefing foreign ministers or

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Speaker 4: prime ministers when they're visiting the country. And certainly the

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Speaker 4: postings I did to Pakistan and Iraq, it was like

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Speaker 4: chartering new ground. It wasn't kind of a strong relationship

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Speaker 4: that had been going for years. It was very dynamic

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Speaker 4: and very reactive to what it did, the enemy did,

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Speaker 4: or what other nations did. And certainly in Pakistan Iraqi

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Speaker 4: were closer with the British and the Americans, the French,

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Speaker 4: Italians and all the other NATO countries involved in those

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Speaker 4: two conflicts. And yet you don't know what you're doing

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Speaker 4: next week. You'll have an idea and a plan. And

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Speaker 4: that's what I found fascinating. And the great thing was

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Speaker 4: you had this freedom of as at a fairly junior level.

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Speaker 4: And the role I had in Iraq, I was embedded

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Speaker 4: with the Australian Task Group, so we were north of

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Speaker 4: Baghdad training and advisorsist stuff with the Iraqis. I was

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Speaker 4: kind of the lead of that self. So you're not

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Speaker 4: the ambassador per se, but you've got this sort of

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Speaker 4: delegated authority of hey, you're the Australian scene to diplomat

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Speaker 4: on the ground up there working with the Australian Task Group.

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Speaker 3: You've got this freedom.

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Speaker 4: And again I was probably thirty ish and you've got

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Speaker 4: that authority and you're briefing foreign ministers, you're breaking defense ministeres,

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Speaker 4: wrecking Prime minister's, all this sort of stuff on what

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Speaker 4: you're doing and advising what you should do, which to

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Speaker 4: me was a great jump to kind of go from

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Speaker 4: platoon level and reading about international relations in history books.

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Speaker 3: And I was never the youngest.

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Speaker 4: I was always on the younger side, and people are like, oh, jeez,

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Speaker 4: you're young for this role. But then you'd found an

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Speaker 4: example of like, oh no, there was someone younger, or

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Speaker 4: just going back to history, as you're a young platoon commander,

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Speaker 4: I'm like, yeah, but historically platoon commanders have been young,

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Speaker 4: and same with junior diplomats.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, a first.

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Speaker 4: Secretary political and an embassy in Paris or Tokyo, they'll

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Speaker 4: be older. But in the war zones, finding people young

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Speaker 4: enough and keen enough and adventurous enough, and there was

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Speaker 4: fitness elements to it, not necessarily like you're not stomping

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Speaker 4: around packs and weapons and all the other stuff. But

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Speaker 4: you're jumping on and off helicopters, you're in vehicles, you're

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Speaker 4: wearing body arm and you're wearing practical clothing and stuff

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Speaker 4: in fifty degree heat. So there's a fitness element to

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Speaker 4: it that attracted and made it more suitable to the

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Speaker 4: younger generations and ida well. And even with the Antarctic program,

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Speaker 4: I was quite young moving into that as a station leader,

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Speaker 4: but I wasn't the youngest and I never had a

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Speaker 4: problem with it. Occasionally you'd meet people who had a

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Speaker 4: chip on their shoulder over it of hey, we're the

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Speaker 4: same age, and you kind of look at where they're at,

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Speaker 4: they look at where you're at. You can see them

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Speaker 4: looking in their own mirror, going you would you get

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Speaker 4: to be in charge?

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Speaker 3: I am.

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Speaker 2: So you went from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs

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Speaker 2: to joining the Australian Antarctic Program as station leader. Now,

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Speaker 2: talk to me about the Antarctic, because before you join

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Speaker 2: this program, it wasn't the first time you went to

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Speaker 2: the Antarctic, was it.

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Speaker 4: No, So the first time I went down was was

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Speaker 4: with a bunch of mates who we'd all spent a

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Speaker 4: number of years in war zone, so it would be

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Speaker 4: cast up. So I got an email from my maid

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Speaker 4: who said, Hey, I'm thinking of putting together this Antarctic trip.

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Speaker 4: It's got to cost about this, which was a pretty

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Speaker 4: number of exits, and this is.

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Speaker 3: The loose plan. Will work it out depending on who

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Speaker 3: says yes. And I couldn't have.

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Speaker 4: I'm just like yes, not knowing anything else other than

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Speaker 4: like I want to go to Antarctica.

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Speaker 3: And let's do it. And then we kind of put

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Speaker 3: together like what are we going to do?

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Speaker 4: We worked out who was on the trip, what skills

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Speaker 4: they had, and we ended up doing ski mountaineering. So

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Speaker 4: I was riding a split board so you can kind

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Speaker 4: of turn it across country skis to do your ascent

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Speaker 4: and then look it together and become a snowboard to

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Speaker 4: do your decent. And we had we had an aim

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Speaker 4: of doing a first ascent of a kind of there's

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Speaker 4: there's so many mountains down there you can get first

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Speaker 4: as sense of any rock. You to stand on a

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Speaker 4: rocket like I'm the first human to stand here. And

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Speaker 4: we had that plan. We got weathered out. We never

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Speaker 4: actually got a first descent. Every time we'd get close,

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Speaker 4: just be wide out and you want to speak to

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Speaker 4: Mallory and Irving if you're yeah about ascending into clouds.

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Speaker 4: But in those scenarios you do it. But these days

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Speaker 4: that's not a great idea. So yeah, that was sort

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Speaker 4: of at the first trip I did. And then when

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Speaker 4: the option came up to join the formal like Australian

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Speaker 4: Antarctic program and go as a station leader, it was

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Speaker 4: an easy decision to be like, well, I loved Antarctic.

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Speaker 2: How did that spark the interest of you joining that program?

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Speaker 3: It was the wildlife and the wilderness of it.

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Speaker 4: So I I'd not gone down there with the intent

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Speaker 4: of changing careers and moving to the Antarctic program, but

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Speaker 4: when I got down there, sore and it is just

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Speaker 4: the most spectacular place on Earth. I mean, if you

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Speaker 4: imagine you've seen the character and Range and k two

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Speaker 4: of those, imagine that they're at sea level though, and

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Speaker 4: you're driving around in a zodiac with still water and

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Speaker 4: orcas and leopard.

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Speaker 3: Seals and whales and penguins and everything.

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Speaker 4: But then also you've got thousand meters mountains just rising

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Speaker 4: straight out of the ocean. There is nothing on Earth

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Speaker 4: Earth that comes close and that was what got me

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Speaker 4: across the line to say, hey, I want to get

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Speaker 4: back down here.

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Speaker 3: And at the time I was looking for something else.

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Speaker 4: I'd had a decade with DEFAT and in war zones

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Speaker 4: again and thought I'm.

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Speaker 3: Going to do something different here.

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Speaker 4: But at the same time, the Antarctic program it's very

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Speaker 4: similar to the operational elements of running a forward operating

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Speaker 4: base or a military base overseas, except it's colorful, so

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Speaker 4: you're not using camouflage and gray and green. Everything's brightly

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Speaker 4: colored buildings. You're down there for science.

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Speaker 3: But it's got a whole lot of other risks and.

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Speaker 4: Challenges where the bad guys aren't trying to kill you,

320
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Speaker 4: but the weather will. And if you get your equipment wrong,

321
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Speaker 4: or you get your planning wrong, you get your weather

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Speaker 4: forecasts and understanding wrong, you can you can really create

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Speaker 4: a lot of problems down there. It can change quickly.

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Speaker 4: So that was something that appealed to me on the

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Speaker 4: work side of it, not just the adventure and wilderness.

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Speaker 2: There's a common denominator here, Davis, is the leadership mole.

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Speaker 2: If it wasn't a leadership role, would you have taken it.

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Speaker 3: So the only job I was qualified for was station leader.

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Speaker 4: So that was because, as one of my team pointed out,

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Speaker 4: he's like, you know, the only thing required for your

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Speaker 4: job is a driver's license.

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Speaker 3: I'm like, yep, that's right. Now.

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Speaker 4: I've got diplomas in ops management and all this other

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Speaker 4: stuff as well, it doesn't matter.

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Speaker 3: Like, technically, all you need to be an.

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Speaker 4: Attaching station leader is a driver's license, manual drivers, a

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Speaker 4: drive stick. But whereas all the other roles on the station,

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Speaker 4: you've got your scientists seeded to be a PhD level

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Speaker 4: glaciologist or seabird ecologist or benthic ecologist or some sort

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Speaker 4: of scientific field that you've never even heard of.

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Speaker 3: You've got to be that, or you've got to.

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Speaker 4: Be mechanics, plumbers, doctors, radio operators, comms.

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Speaker 3: Technicians, satellite technicians, chefs.

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Speaker 4: Everyone has a specific trade and skill set, whereas as

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Speaker 4: a former infantry officer, you're not that qualified. And a

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Speaker 4: lot of transit transfers.

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Speaker 2: Other too tough for mate, No cuff too tough, that's right.

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Speaker 4: Other than other than being in charge of things and

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Speaker 4: telling people what to do, which is what infantry officers

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Speaker 4: are greater at the time, I would have taken a

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Speaker 4: different role. I think now, having done six different trips,

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Speaker 4: all in leadership roles in Antarctica, I'd struggle, and I

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Speaker 4: do struggle when I'm not in charge, Like I've had

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Speaker 4: a few. The role I was running, I was running

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Speaker 4: a field camp. We were like four hundred k's away

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Speaker 4: from the main station, running at the field camp of

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Speaker 4: forty two people out in the middle of They where

358
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Speaker 4: their own helicopters and owned planes and all this sort

359
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Speaker 4: of we're in charge, We're doing it our way. But

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Speaker 4: to get there we had to go through the main

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Speaker 4: station at Casey, and the times I had to go

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Speaker 4: through there, and I'm the kind of field lead to

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Speaker 4: trying to get my flights out and get my team

364
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Speaker 4: out to dowfield camp. And there was both one of

365
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Speaker 4: the stage leaders we senior but been around a bit

366
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Speaker 4: so I didn't have to tell you much. But the

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Speaker 4: other guy, I was quite don and the amount of

368
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Speaker 4: times I've been there, like, oh hey, it's just a

369
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Speaker 4: quick one, like when out station, I actually think you

370
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Speaker 4: should do it, and like he was sick of me

371
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Speaker 4: with about ten seconds of telling him how to do things,

372
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Speaker 4: and my team are like I think you could need it.

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Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, I'll just shut up and.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, no, because it's definitely I would say that, you know,

375
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Speaker 2: there's definitely that leadership mentality and once it's ingrained in there,

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Speaker 2: and you know, it's it's a different mentality, isn't. It's

377
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Speaker 2: just a different way of thinking, different way of process

378
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Speaker 2: and things, and a different way of dealing with people.

379
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Speaker 2: And yes, it's a great position to be in.

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Speaker 4: I always like to say though, like in terms of

381
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Speaker 4: leadership mindset, yeah, you can come across as a control

382
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Speaker 4: freak and there's elements of that, But at the same time,

383
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Speaker 4: the best leaders out there, they're really good followers, and

384
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Speaker 4: they're really good fundamentally. The first thing you need to

385
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Speaker 4: be is a good member of the team and a

386
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Speaker 4: good follower.

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Speaker 3: So when you're not in charge, you go, right, what's

388
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Speaker 3: the what's the job here?

389
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Speaker 4: And whatever needs to be done, you just pick up

390
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Speaker 4: the shovel or whatever it is, and you're doing it

391
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Speaker 4: and helping and supporting other lead. And I say this

392
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Speaker 4: a lot of times, and you learn a lot more

393
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Speaker 4: from your bad leaders than your good ones. The good

394
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Speaker 4: ones you barely remember some elements. You're like, oh, Jesus,

395
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Speaker 4: aunt was great, you know, why was he great? He's good,

396
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Speaker 4: whereas the bad ones you'd be like, oh, this, this,

397
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Speaker 4: this is this. So you always encourage people to look

398
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Speaker 4: at that. But when there's poor leadership ahead of you,

399
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Speaker 4: and it's so easy for a team to sit around

400
00:17:24,920 --> 00:17:26,439
Speaker 4: and be like, oh, jeseus doing this or this is

401
00:17:26,520 --> 00:17:28,119
Speaker 4: I wouldn't do that, and you go, have you actually

402
00:17:28,119 --> 00:17:30,919
Speaker 4: communicated that to them formally or properly, you know, in

403
00:17:30,960 --> 00:17:34,119
Speaker 4: a constructive way, And then if they have had a

404
00:17:34,200 --> 00:17:36,280
Speaker 4: chance to listen to it and they've ignored you, then

405
00:17:36,320 --> 00:17:39,120
Speaker 4: you start your decision and process changes a little bit.

406
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Speaker 4: But if you go, if you're not actually there, and

407
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Speaker 4: then what have you done to help them succeed? And

408
00:17:43,400 --> 00:17:46,240
Speaker 4: I always use the example of the letter that Obama

409
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Speaker 4: wrote to Trump in terms of like, your success will

410
00:17:48,520 --> 00:17:50,240
Speaker 4: be our success as a nation, So I wish you

411
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Speaker 4: all the best.

412
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Speaker 3: Now, sure you have to do that through gritted teeth, but.

413
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Speaker 4: It's this thing of yeah, it's easy to look at

414
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Speaker 4: another leader who go they're doing this wrong and blah

415
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Speaker 4: blah blah. You go, but what have you done as

416
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Speaker 4: a team, What have you done as the apparatus around

417
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Speaker 4: that to give them success and help them do a

418
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Speaker 4: good job.

419
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Speaker 3: Of leading you and what are you doing to be

420
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Speaker 3: a good follower now?

421
00:18:08,640 --> 00:18:10,480
Speaker 4: At the same time, if they start ignoring you and

422
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Speaker 4: not listening to you, and not listening to the team

423
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Speaker 4: and not taking your advice or doing it their way

424
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Speaker 4: every time, there's some other elements that play, and that's

425
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Speaker 4: when you start to maybe go around a little bit

426
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Speaker 4: and communicate to your informal leaders and your informal structures,

427
00:18:24,680 --> 00:18:27,280
Speaker 4: and that becomes a really important part of your own

428
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Speaker 4: leadership process is understanding the informal processes around you that

429
00:18:32,440 --> 00:18:35,000
Speaker 4: by the time feedback gets to you, what's it going

430
00:18:35,080 --> 00:18:37,840
Speaker 4: through and how much courage is taken for someone to

431
00:18:37,840 --> 00:18:40,719
Speaker 4: actually stand up and give you that and how you

432
00:18:40,760 --> 00:18:42,600
Speaker 4: take it on board or incorporate it into your plan

433
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Speaker 4: can really make or break your team.

434
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Speaker 2: What was in your mindset when you decided to take

435
00:18:57,720 --> 00:19:00,760
Speaker 2: on this station leader role, What was the vision of

436
00:19:01,119 --> 00:19:05,239
Speaker 2: this of this task ahead of you? And you know,

437
00:19:05,880 --> 00:19:07,840
Speaker 2: how did you how did you prepare for it?

438
00:19:08,320 --> 00:19:10,520
Speaker 4: Yes, so it was a one year contract for myself,

439
00:19:10,520 --> 00:19:12,920
Speaker 4: for the team of twenty four. We'd go down to

440
00:19:13,040 --> 00:19:16,000
Speaker 4: Davis on a one year contract. The first summer was

441
00:19:16,040 --> 00:19:17,760
Speaker 4: going to have one hundred people in station, all the

442
00:19:17,760 --> 00:19:21,040
Speaker 4: scientists and all the kind of helicopters and all the frantic.

443
00:19:20,720 --> 00:19:21,560
Speaker 3: Work that gets done.

444
00:19:21,600 --> 00:19:24,000
Speaker 4: But we'd stay on for the winter after that and

445
00:19:24,600 --> 00:19:26,560
Speaker 4: run the station per year, so it had a very

446
00:19:27,000 --> 00:19:28,560
Speaker 4: definitive set of goalposts.

447
00:19:29,000 --> 00:19:29,440
Speaker 3: We were the.

448
00:19:29,400 --> 00:19:33,760
Speaker 4: Seventy third continual rotation of Australian Antarctic presence, so you know,

449
00:19:34,320 --> 00:19:37,360
Speaker 4: we're certainly going into a very very structured and established

450
00:19:37,400 --> 00:19:39,439
Speaker 4: system of Okay, the ships do this, the planes through that.

451
00:19:39,720 --> 00:19:42,639
Speaker 4: Stuff goes wrong down there in terms of logistics, chains

452
00:19:42,640 --> 00:19:45,479
Speaker 4: and different events, but we could have never expected what

453
00:19:45,560 --> 00:19:48,200
Speaker 4: would play out in our particular.

454
00:19:47,880 --> 00:19:49,879
Speaker 3: Years, so we went in with a pretty clear mindset.

455
00:19:49,920 --> 00:19:51,720
Speaker 4: Yes, this will be challenging, this will be hard, but

456
00:19:52,280 --> 00:19:56,600
Speaker 4: challenges and obstacles and issues that were fairly predictable or

457
00:19:56,640 --> 00:20:00,119
Speaker 4: fairly known challenges, and we'd do a lot of train

458
00:20:00,200 --> 00:20:01,840
Speaker 4: We all got together at Hobart before we left, and

459
00:20:01,960 --> 00:20:02,800
Speaker 4: you do mental health.

460
00:20:02,680 --> 00:20:03,400
Speaker 3: And resilience training.

461
00:20:03,400 --> 00:20:06,919
Speaker 4: Everyone's gone through a pretty rigorous selection process with sykes

462
00:20:06,960 --> 00:20:10,600
Speaker 4: and assessments and physical tests and everything's well to make

463
00:20:10,600 --> 00:20:13,040
Speaker 4: sure you're fit and healthy and you've got the mental

464
00:20:13,080 --> 00:20:17,040
Speaker 4: mindset as well to go down there. But that's only

465
00:20:17,119 --> 00:20:18,280
Speaker 4: going to get and that was, but it was all

466
00:20:18,320 --> 00:20:21,000
Speaker 4: based around Yeah, it's a fairly set period of time.

467
00:20:21,200 --> 00:20:23,040
Speaker 4: And the analogy I use as well with a lot

468
00:20:23,080 --> 00:20:25,399
Speaker 4: of the military stuff of how different it must have

469
00:20:25,480 --> 00:20:28,880
Speaker 4: been when they went and landed at Normandy. They didn't

470
00:20:28,920 --> 00:20:30,400
Speaker 4: know how long it was going to take to win

471
00:20:30,760 --> 00:20:31,879
Speaker 4: the same and they didn't even know they were going

472
00:20:31,920 --> 00:20:35,840
Speaker 4: to win. Whereas when in Afghanistan for yourself and the

473
00:20:35,880 --> 00:20:38,320
Speaker 4: tours and stuff I did, you're on this six month

474
00:20:38,400 --> 00:20:40,320
Speaker 4: or three month cycle or you know, four months on

475
00:20:40,359 --> 00:20:41,800
Speaker 4: and then you get a two week trip to Rome

476
00:20:41,840 --> 00:20:43,359
Speaker 4: and it had a good structure to it. Now you

477
00:20:43,359 --> 00:20:44,639
Speaker 4: still don't know if you're coming home and live at

478
00:20:44,640 --> 00:20:47,879
Speaker 4: the end of it, but you have this goalpost. And

479
00:20:47,880 --> 00:20:50,440
Speaker 4: what happened to us in twenty twenty was we went

480
00:20:50,480 --> 00:20:52,600
Speaker 4: from that structured system in the world that we all

481
00:20:52,640 --> 00:20:54,520
Speaker 4: live in. Now, Okay, you're going to do this. You'll

482
00:20:54,560 --> 00:20:56,720
Speaker 4: have these challenges and prepare yourself for this, and that's

483
00:20:57,240 --> 00:21:00,639
Speaker 4: that's what's ahead of you. And it might deviate minus

484
00:21:00,640 --> 00:21:02,720
Speaker 4: ten twenty percent. But what happened to us was we

485
00:21:02,840 --> 00:21:05,920
Speaker 4: got to nearly two thirds of the way through our

486
00:21:05,960 --> 00:21:08,960
Speaker 4: trip when and the writing had been on the wall

487
00:21:08,960 --> 00:21:11,280
Speaker 4: for a while but then formally they just said came

488
00:21:11,280 --> 00:21:14,240
Speaker 4: out and ripped the band aid off and told us like, unfortunately,

489
00:21:14,320 --> 00:21:16,000
Speaker 4: due to the pandemic, we don't have any ships, we

490
00:21:16,080 --> 00:21:18,000
Speaker 4: won any planes that can get to you this summer.

491
00:21:18,240 --> 00:21:20,919
Speaker 4: We can't use an international team as well on an

492
00:21:20,960 --> 00:21:23,320
Speaker 4: international ship or anyone where everyone's doing their own thing.

493
00:21:23,840 --> 00:21:27,040
Speaker 4: So the best thing for us is to leave you

494
00:21:27,119 --> 00:21:29,880
Speaker 4: and your team there for an extra six months, potentially

495
00:21:29,920 --> 00:21:32,720
Speaker 4: even longer, while we work out how to get you home,

496
00:21:33,280 --> 00:21:38,119
Speaker 4: and you're over to you And it was this just bombshell.

497
00:21:38,119 --> 00:21:39,399
Speaker 4: I see the chapter of the book, I called it

498
00:21:39,400 --> 00:21:41,679
Speaker 4: the bombshell of just straight away from that moment on,

499
00:21:42,640 --> 00:21:45,320
Speaker 4: we were in uncharted territory. If we don't know when

500
00:21:45,359 --> 00:21:47,280
Speaker 4: we're going home, we don't know how we're getting home.

501
00:21:47,520 --> 00:21:48,920
Speaker 4: It's just twenty twenty as well, so we didn't know

502
00:21:48,960 --> 00:21:49,800
Speaker 4: what home was going.

503
00:21:49,720 --> 00:21:51,280
Speaker 3: To look like when we did get there.

504
00:21:52,280 --> 00:21:54,600
Speaker 4: And you're just trying to piece all that together, and

505
00:21:54,880 --> 00:21:57,919
Speaker 4: it became this thing of well, this might not be

506
00:21:57,960 --> 00:22:00,080
Speaker 4: our fault, like we didn't have a hand in that

507
00:22:00,119 --> 00:22:02,479
Speaker 4: decision at all, but it's our problem.

508
00:22:02,560 --> 00:22:05,280
Speaker 2: Just give us a picture of how your day to

509
00:22:05,359 --> 00:22:09,960
Speaker 2: day life looked. What are you doing on this program.

510
00:22:10,119 --> 00:22:11,520
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I mean day to day in the life

511
00:22:11,600 --> 00:22:14,200
Speaker 4: on an Antarctic station, it gets pretty routine and every day,

512
00:22:14,280 --> 00:22:16,840
Speaker 4: but at the same time, every day is different. Outside

513
00:22:17,080 --> 00:22:20,359
Speaker 4: it might be minus ten minus thirty degrees for minus

514
00:22:20,400 --> 00:22:22,600
Speaker 4: forty even in the winter. If you don't wear the

515
00:22:22,640 --> 00:22:24,680
Speaker 4: right equipment, you're going to get frost bol or freese

516
00:22:24,720 --> 00:22:26,640
Speaker 4: death within moments outside.

517
00:22:26,880 --> 00:22:28,359
Speaker 3: So you've always got a factor that and like, right,

518
00:22:28,400 --> 00:22:29,000
Speaker 3: I've got to get.

519
00:22:28,880 --> 00:22:31,639
Speaker 4: My ass out of bed, stretch, get the blood moving

520
00:22:31,680 --> 00:22:32,160
Speaker 4: for the day.

521
00:22:32,280 --> 00:22:33,919
Speaker 3: And that's when you're on a station. When you're in

522
00:22:33,920 --> 00:22:35,320
Speaker 3: a field camp living in a.

523
00:22:35,359 --> 00:22:38,439
Speaker 4: Tent, you're waking up and you're in your nice polar

524
00:22:38,560 --> 00:22:41,639
Speaker 4: rated sleeping bag, but the minute you start unzipping that,

525
00:22:42,320 --> 00:22:45,840
Speaker 4: it's minus fifteen ambient in your tent. You've got your

526
00:22:45,840 --> 00:22:48,959
Speaker 4: water bottles frozen, your pea bottles frozen, Your socks are

527
00:22:49,000 --> 00:22:51,720
Speaker 4: frozen because they were sweaty yesterday. And you're just going like, okay,

528
00:22:51,720 --> 00:22:53,679
Speaker 4: I've got to try and find some non frozen socks

529
00:22:53,720 --> 00:22:54,520
Speaker 4: to get it.

530
00:22:54,640 --> 00:22:57,200
Speaker 3: So I used to like these are better than the station.

531
00:22:57,280 --> 00:22:59,560
Speaker 4: Example is you shuffle your ass to the kitchen and

532
00:22:59,720 --> 00:23:01,600
Speaker 4: you have a bowl of cereal and look out the window.

533
00:23:02,040 --> 00:23:04,040
Speaker 3: But living in an antarctic field camp.

534
00:23:03,880 --> 00:23:07,320
Speaker 4: I'd have to do I'd roll over and plank for

535
00:23:07,440 --> 00:23:09,359
Speaker 4: like a minute and start doing push ups just to

536
00:23:09,359 --> 00:23:09,920
Speaker 4: get warm.

537
00:23:09,800 --> 00:23:11,120
Speaker 3: Enough to get out of my sleeping bag.

538
00:23:11,200 --> 00:23:13,520
Speaker 4: To then put on your overalls and put on all

539
00:23:13,520 --> 00:23:15,760
Speaker 4: your antarctic layers to even get out of the tent,

540
00:23:15,880 --> 00:23:17,600
Speaker 4: which you know some days that then be a foot

541
00:23:17,640 --> 00:23:18,040
Speaker 4: of snow.

542
00:23:18,359 --> 00:23:20,840
Speaker 2: This is what I mean. Just to live right, just

543
00:23:20,880 --> 00:23:23,840
Speaker 2: to function, you've got to be disciplined right, and you've

544
00:23:23,840 --> 00:23:26,280
Speaker 2: got to be motivated. You know, you've got to love

545
00:23:26,320 --> 00:23:29,880
Speaker 2: what you do because and you'll be the best one

546
00:23:29,920 --> 00:23:32,280
Speaker 2: to tell this, because if you're not, you're not getting

547
00:23:32,320 --> 00:23:34,560
Speaker 2: out of that sleeping bag. But you've got to be

548
00:23:34,600 --> 00:23:37,640
Speaker 2: disciplined in different ways as well. So not just disciplined

549
00:23:37,640 --> 00:23:39,800
Speaker 2: of okay, it's the alarm's going off or the generators

550
00:23:39,800 --> 00:23:41,359
Speaker 2: have started, which means the camp's.

551
00:23:41,080 --> 00:23:42,000
Speaker 3: Got to get up for the day.

552
00:23:42,440 --> 00:23:45,040
Speaker 4: But then so you get yourself dressed, and you're dressing

553
00:23:45,040 --> 00:23:48,440
Speaker 4: in probably ten kilos whether of antarctic gear, to move.

554
00:23:48,280 --> 00:23:51,440
Speaker 3: The fifty meters to the main mess tent that we'd.

555
00:23:51,200 --> 00:23:54,560
Speaker 4: Have and to get a brew on and get some

556
00:23:54,960 --> 00:23:57,040
Speaker 4: food into you to start warming up for the day.

557
00:23:57,600 --> 00:23:59,960
Speaker 4: The one thing we had to be incredibly disciplined on.

558
00:24:00,240 --> 00:24:02,680
Speaker 4: The only thing I really called everyone out on early

559
00:24:02,720 --> 00:24:08,320
Speaker 4: in the piece was do not ask work questions, like

560
00:24:08,359 --> 00:24:10,800
Speaker 4: before eight o'clock. So we're going to wake up at

561
00:24:10,800 --> 00:24:13,639
Speaker 4: six ish, You've got until eight o'clock to do whatever

562
00:24:13,680 --> 00:24:15,880
Speaker 4: you need to do to get your ass out of bed.

563
00:24:16,240 --> 00:24:17,959
Speaker 4: Do not ask work questions. And that was for me,

564
00:24:18,040 --> 00:24:20,320
Speaker 4: and then mainly the pilots and then the field officers

565
00:24:20,359 --> 00:24:23,160
Speaker 4: as well, who they know what team they were taking out.

566
00:24:23,080 --> 00:24:23,399
Speaker 3: For the day.

567
00:24:23,440 --> 00:24:25,280
Speaker 4: They'd know the plan because we'd have revised that and

568
00:24:25,280 --> 00:24:27,280
Speaker 4: gone through it the night before with the forecast and everything.

569
00:24:27,600 --> 00:24:29,359
Speaker 4: But we're sitting there trying to have breakfast or have

570
00:24:29,400 --> 00:24:31,639
Speaker 4: a brew, and ye yes, you're staring out the window

571
00:24:31,640 --> 00:24:34,479
Speaker 4: and your brain is starting to think about work. But

572
00:24:34,520 --> 00:24:36,199
Speaker 4: the last thing you want is someone walking up and

573
00:24:36,200 --> 00:24:38,600
Speaker 4: me're like, oh, hey, Dave, well, how are we looking

574
00:24:38,640 --> 00:24:39,840
Speaker 4: to go to X location?

575
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:42,399
Speaker 2: And I'm going to just be like, morning, how are

576
00:24:42,400 --> 00:24:45,720
Speaker 2: you going to Let's have a normal conversation.

577
00:24:46,320 --> 00:24:48,719
Speaker 4: Exactly At eight o'clock, we'll do the ops brief and

578
00:24:48,760 --> 00:24:50,480
Speaker 4: we'll look at the formal forecast, we'll speak to the

579
00:24:50,520 --> 00:24:54,600
Speaker 4: forecasters and we'll refine the plan. And everyone really respected

580
00:24:54,600 --> 00:24:58,320
Speaker 4: that and it became a real key part. And try

581
00:24:58,359 --> 00:25:00,600
Speaker 4: and talk about not work. There's not much else to

582
00:25:00,640 --> 00:25:02,600
Speaker 4: talk about when you're living with forty people in an

583
00:25:02,600 --> 00:25:05,880
Speaker 4: antarctic field camp. You're living a breathing work. But you're

584
00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:09,359
Speaker 4: try and just keep it social, chat about different things

585
00:25:09,400 --> 00:25:11,800
Speaker 4: and that that's the real discipline.

586
00:25:11,840 --> 00:25:14,439
Speaker 3: That's the hardest part as well to not have that creep.

587
00:25:15,160 --> 00:25:18,520
Speaker 2: So your threequarter the way through a yearly trip, right, So,

588
00:25:18,640 --> 00:25:20,520
Speaker 2: how do you get the news? Mate? How do you

589
00:25:20,560 --> 00:25:22,120
Speaker 2: get the news? Is it a phone call?

590
00:25:22,280 --> 00:25:23,600
Speaker 3: Is it it's a video call?

591
00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:26,720
Speaker 2: Like this, it's a video cool, So you get a

592
00:25:26,920 --> 00:25:30,080
Speaker 2: video call? What's going through your head when you're getting

593
00:25:30,080 --> 00:25:30,400
Speaker 2: that call?

594
00:25:30,640 --> 00:25:32,480
Speaker 4: When I got that call, so to me, it wasn't

595
00:25:32,520 --> 00:25:34,800
Speaker 4: really news. And to a number of the team, we

596
00:25:34,920 --> 00:25:37,280
Speaker 4: knew that was coming. We'd seen things play out with

597
00:25:37,280 --> 00:25:39,119
Speaker 4: what the pandemic was doing, the impact was having on

598
00:25:39,160 --> 00:25:42,320
Speaker 4: international shipping, and we were reliant on our new icebreaker

599
00:25:42,400 --> 00:25:45,080
Speaker 4: being built, which was under construction at the time, was

600
00:25:45,080 --> 00:25:47,160
Speaker 4: supposed to come and get us on its maiden voyage

601
00:25:47,200 --> 00:25:48,920
Speaker 4: and that didn't happen, and the ultsup couldn't get it,

602
00:25:48,960 --> 00:25:49,680
Speaker 4: So there's a few.

603
00:25:49,560 --> 00:25:51,400
Speaker 3: Operational factors that you could predict.

604
00:25:52,440 --> 00:25:55,120
Speaker 4: And at the time though, when it was formalized and hey,

605
00:25:55,200 --> 00:25:57,359
Speaker 4: you're staying longer, we're going to work out a plan later,

606
00:25:57,760 --> 00:26:02,040
Speaker 4: we'll let you know. I basically started going through everyone

607
00:26:02,040 --> 00:26:03,919
Speaker 4: in the team and trying to assess where they're going

608
00:26:03,960 --> 00:26:05,640
Speaker 4: to be on the spectrum of acceptance and how they're

609
00:26:05,680 --> 00:26:07,000
Speaker 4: going to deal with it, and to work out a

610
00:26:07,040 --> 00:26:08,760
Speaker 4: plan of how to pitch it to everyone.

611
00:26:09,119 --> 00:26:10,600
Speaker 3: But then realize, Okay, there's.

612
00:26:10,440 --> 00:26:12,840
Speaker 4: Going to be a few here that aren't going to

613
00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:16,720
Speaker 4: go well with this, for really really good reasons. Of

614
00:26:17,240 --> 00:26:19,840
Speaker 4: one of them had a very, very sick parent who

615
00:26:19,880 --> 00:26:21,960
Speaker 4: if they've been able to get home as planned, would

616
00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:25,800
Speaker 4: have had a chance to have seen them again. But

617
00:26:26,160 --> 00:26:28,440
Speaker 4: now with this extension, that wasn't going to happen. There

618
00:26:28,520 --> 00:26:30,400
Speaker 4: was a number of other members of the team who've

619
00:26:30,400 --> 00:26:33,439
Speaker 4: got partners back home trying to homeschool multiple kids and

620
00:26:33,480 --> 00:26:34,879
Speaker 4: deal with all that, going like, that's all right, if

621
00:26:34,920 --> 00:26:37,080
Speaker 4: you're home by Christmas, I'll make it, and you all

622
00:26:37,080 --> 00:26:40,119
Speaker 4: of a sudden going, oh, you've just not only committed

623
00:26:40,160 --> 00:26:42,000
Speaker 4: the person who's here to another six months here, but

624
00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:44,720
Speaker 4: You've committed their family to another six months without their

625
00:26:44,760 --> 00:26:47,959
Speaker 4: parent and their homeschooling. You've got all the lockdowns, you've

626
00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:49,440
Speaker 4: got all the job crist You've got all these other

627
00:26:49,480 --> 00:26:52,680
Speaker 4: issues back home that through no fault of their own,

628
00:26:53,280 --> 00:26:55,160
Speaker 4: and this other decision. So it had all these second

629
00:26:55,160 --> 00:26:57,040
Speaker 4: and third order consequences, and that was all going through

630
00:26:57,040 --> 00:26:59,199
Speaker 4: my head of trying to work out what's going on

631
00:26:59,240 --> 00:27:02,120
Speaker 4: here and how do we break the news. So I

632
00:27:02,840 --> 00:27:05,600
Speaker 4: what I did. So when I got the news, finished

633
00:27:05,640 --> 00:27:08,760
Speaker 4: the phone call, and then I went told my deputy

634
00:27:08,840 --> 00:27:11,200
Speaker 4: station letter. She was the wintering chef and shed she

635
00:27:11,240 --> 00:27:12,919
Speaker 4: had a lot more Antarctic experience than me, and she

636
00:27:13,040 --> 00:27:14,160
Speaker 4: was the absolute.

637
00:27:13,840 --> 00:27:14,639
Speaker 3: Yin to my yang.

638
00:27:14,800 --> 00:27:16,800
Speaker 4: And the best decision I ever made was appointing her

639
00:27:16,840 --> 00:27:19,320
Speaker 4: as the deputy and went and spoke to her and

640
00:27:19,320 --> 00:27:22,720
Speaker 4: said hey, and she knew and she's like, we're staying,

641
00:27:22,720 --> 00:27:26,240
Speaker 4: and yeah, we're staying. And we sort of hugged it

642
00:27:26,240 --> 00:27:28,160
Speaker 4: out because we knew that it was going to get rough,

643
00:27:28,280 --> 00:27:30,280
Speaker 4: and she's like, all right, well, how are you going

644
00:27:30,359 --> 00:27:31,080
Speaker 4: to tell everyone?

645
00:27:31,080 --> 00:27:31,879
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm going to go.

646
00:27:31,880 --> 00:27:34,640
Speaker 4: And tell two or three people who were the worst affected.

647
00:27:35,119 --> 00:27:37,080
Speaker 4: I went found them at their workplaces and just said, hey,

648
00:27:37,119 --> 00:27:38,720
Speaker 4: by the way, you'll see and notice that we're doing

649
00:27:38,720 --> 00:27:41,920
Speaker 4: a station meeting tonight. To rip the band aid off.

650
00:27:42,359 --> 00:27:43,440
Speaker 4: That's what this is what it's about.

651
00:27:43,680 --> 00:27:46,159
Speaker 2: Rather than giving a centralized brief, you went round and

652
00:27:46,200 --> 00:27:48,480
Speaker 2: prioritized to me the people.

653
00:27:49,200 --> 00:27:50,760
Speaker 4: I put it on the board and said, hey, we're

654
00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:52,480
Speaker 4: doing a meeting tonight. But everyone was at work and

655
00:27:52,760 --> 00:27:53,600
Speaker 4: it didn't really.

656
00:27:53,480 --> 00:27:54,720
Speaker 3: In some ways don't change anything.

657
00:27:54,800 --> 00:27:57,399
Speaker 4: So calling a snap meeting, which we could do, you

658
00:27:57,480 --> 00:27:59,399
Speaker 4: hit the emergency alarm and everyone had come to the

659
00:27:59,440 --> 00:28:01,399
Speaker 4: mess which we we do want to know all the

660
00:28:01,440 --> 00:28:03,080
Speaker 4: fire lines that go. Well, he wants a week because

661
00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:05,640
Speaker 4: of dust and stuff anyway, but there was a real

662
00:28:05,720 --> 00:28:08,240
Speaker 4: point doing that. I just said, hey, after dinner, station meeting.

663
00:28:08,600 --> 00:28:11,919
Speaker 4: The word got out pretty quickly anyway, but what I

664
00:28:11,920 --> 00:28:14,440
Speaker 4: did so after telling a few key people and kind

665
00:28:14,480 --> 00:28:16,840
Speaker 4: of getting the word out, setting the meeting up and

666
00:28:16,840 --> 00:28:18,640
Speaker 4: making sure everyone knew that, hey, this is the sort

667
00:28:18,680 --> 00:28:21,200
Speaker 4: of meeting after dinner that you turn up to. Most

668
00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:22,720
Speaker 4: of the time, everyone turned up there with a few

669
00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:25,520
Speaker 4: times you go, you don't need to come to this one.

670
00:28:25,840 --> 00:28:27,200
Speaker 4: But then I went got my own head right, So

671
00:28:27,200 --> 00:28:29,280
Speaker 4: I went for a walk and there's so many places

672
00:28:29,320 --> 00:28:31,359
Speaker 4: you could walk by yourself in Antartica. But luckily it

673
00:28:31,480 --> 00:28:33,440
Speaker 4: was a nice ish day, which in the middle of

674
00:28:33,440 --> 00:28:35,720
Speaker 4: winter was simplely minus ten or fifteen. So is boody cold,

675
00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:37,560
Speaker 4: but you wear the right gear and it's not windy.

676
00:28:37,600 --> 00:28:40,040
Speaker 4: So I went for a walk to get my own

677
00:28:40,080 --> 00:28:42,680
Speaker 4: head right and go okay. So you wanted a leadership

678
00:28:42,720 --> 00:28:46,280
Speaker 4: challenge of running a station. Now you've got an unprecedented

679
00:28:46,400 --> 00:28:48,200
Speaker 4: and ridiculous scenario.

680
00:28:47,880 --> 00:28:50,040
Speaker 2: That just hasn't Now you've got one.

681
00:28:50,400 --> 00:28:53,200
Speaker 4: Now you've got one. So you know, well done, your muppet.

682
00:28:53,400 --> 00:28:54,560
Speaker 4: You wanted this, You've got it.

683
00:28:54,640 --> 00:28:56,760
Speaker 2: You wanted that at the highest order. You wanted to

684
00:28:56,760 --> 00:29:01,840
Speaker 2: be tested by the program and and the Antarctic. And

685
00:29:01,880 --> 00:29:06,200
Speaker 2: guess what it's it's certainly done that. How important beforehand

686
00:29:06,600 --> 00:29:10,800
Speaker 2: were your briefs and debriefs and how did your communication change?

687
00:29:11,720 --> 00:29:13,600
Speaker 4: I think, yeah, So we had a weekly station meeting,

688
00:29:13,600 --> 00:29:16,240
Speaker 4: and we'd have smaller ops and group meetings, and I'd

689
00:29:16,280 --> 00:29:19,480
Speaker 4: do one on one with each particular leadership in like

690
00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:21,520
Speaker 4: group and team once a week and all these different

691
00:29:21,640 --> 00:29:25,480
Speaker 4: like pretty predictable structures. They were all pretty routine, and

692
00:29:25,520 --> 00:29:29,200
Speaker 4: there was never anything that heated or spicy at any

693
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:33,360
Speaker 4: of those meetings, whereas after the extension, some of those

694
00:29:33,400 --> 00:29:37,920
Speaker 4: meetings became like press conferences, and I was then the

695
00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:41,960
Speaker 4: front of this situation and think but thankfully, and I

696
00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:44,600
Speaker 4: had some great members of the team that then even

697
00:29:44,880 --> 00:29:47,280
Speaker 4: like yeah, they'd sort of be throwing questions at me

698
00:29:47,320 --> 00:29:49,480
Speaker 4: and asking this, like what And then yet at the

699
00:29:49,480 --> 00:29:50,960
Speaker 4: same time they'd be like, we're not yelling at you.

700
00:29:51,080 --> 00:29:52,760
Speaker 4: We want to get get And I'm like, well, let's

701
00:29:52,760 --> 00:29:54,320
Speaker 4: get the buddy director on the phone, and let's get

702
00:29:54,360 --> 00:29:55,200
Speaker 4: other Let's get the people that.

703
00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:58,200
Speaker 3: Made this buddy decision on the phone. Now, we set that.

704
00:29:58,280 --> 00:30:00,400
Speaker 4: Up to do a video call with the ops manager

705
00:30:00,440 --> 00:30:03,640
Speaker 4: who kind of been the drive the decision, but the

706
00:30:03,720 --> 00:30:08,160
Speaker 4: zoom link was so bad, it was worse. So we're

707
00:30:08,240 --> 00:30:11,440
Speaker 4: sitting in the town hall in the cinema trying to

708
00:30:11,480 --> 00:30:13,680
Speaker 4: ask questions and it's just like dropping out and they

709
00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:15,840
Speaker 4: so somebody be like, well, why couldn't you have done this?

710
00:30:15,880 --> 00:30:18,120
Speaker 3: Why is the ship delayed? And what? This was predictablelah

711
00:30:18,120 --> 00:30:20,239
Speaker 3: bah blah blah, And then it'd kind of be like

712
00:30:23,200 --> 00:30:23,920
Speaker 3: it's just like God.

713
00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:28,680
Speaker 4: So at the end of the day, I kind of

714
00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:30,760
Speaker 4: made the decision like, look, old manager. I'll just get

715
00:30:30,800 --> 00:30:32,800
Speaker 4: all the information I can and I'll pass on to you.

716
00:30:32,800 --> 00:30:33,040
Speaker 3: Guys.

717
00:30:33,040 --> 00:30:35,080
Speaker 4: Please don't shoot me as I'm messaging this stuff out.

718
00:30:35,080 --> 00:30:36,800
Speaker 4: We're all in the same boat. I've been as stuffed

719
00:30:36,800 --> 00:30:39,160
Speaker 4: around by this as you all have. We're going to

720
00:30:39,200 --> 00:30:41,280
Speaker 4: find a way to get through to the end. Let's

721
00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:44,240
Speaker 4: take take ownership all the classic things of take ownership

722
00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:46,760
Speaker 4: of this, the sphere of control in terms of choose

723
00:30:46,800 --> 00:30:49,040
Speaker 4: how you face what you can't control and get your

724
00:30:49,120 --> 00:30:50,320
Speaker 4: mindset right on that.

725
00:30:50,320 --> 00:30:51,760
Speaker 3: That became super important.

726
00:30:52,400 --> 00:30:55,680
Speaker 4: Didn't work for everyone, worked for most, and that became

727
00:30:55,720 --> 00:30:59,240
Speaker 4: another change of in these station meetings, and from a

728
00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:03,080
Speaker 4: leadership spective, I'd always been trying to get total group

729
00:31:03,120 --> 00:31:05,440
Speaker 4: harmony and one hundred percent success at times, and I

730
00:31:05,520 --> 00:31:08,000
Speaker 4: realized after that, like, this is going to get pretty

731
00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:11,600
Speaker 4: ugly and I'm not going to be able to achieve that.

732
00:31:20,640 --> 00:31:24,280
Speaker 2: How do you cope with that from a psychological standpoint?

733
00:31:24,560 --> 00:31:26,800
Speaker 2: Or did you cope with that? And how does that

734
00:31:26,840 --> 00:31:30,120
Speaker 2: affect you psychologically? What was your coping mechanism?

735
00:31:30,240 --> 00:31:33,520
Speaker 3: No great question, So probably a good percentage.

736
00:31:33,520 --> 00:31:35,880
Speaker 4: They're probably eighty percent of a station leader's job, and

737
00:31:35,880 --> 00:31:38,640
Speaker 4: certainly my job in that second half of the whole

738
00:31:38,800 --> 00:31:42,520
Speaker 4: scenario was uncited by most of the team. You're one

739
00:31:42,560 --> 00:31:46,360
Speaker 4: on one chatting to different team members constantly about whatever

740
00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:48,160
Speaker 4: it is they've got going on or their particular problem.

741
00:31:48,160 --> 00:31:49,600
Speaker 4: They're problem with someone else in the team, or theyir

742
00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:51,760
Speaker 4: problem with you, or their problem with back home, and

743
00:31:52,600 --> 00:31:55,480
Speaker 4: they're keeping that pretty private. So people might know they've

744
00:31:55,480 --> 00:31:56,920
Speaker 4: got this issue, but they don't know you're helping them

745
00:31:56,920 --> 00:31:58,960
Speaker 4: through it. And you've got all these different subgroups, and

746
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:01,000
Speaker 4: so you'd be out and the best thing to do

747
00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:02,760
Speaker 4: is ralling, get something in your office and talk and go, hey,

748
00:32:02,840 --> 00:32:05,840
Speaker 4: let's talk about you. You're going out and you're going

749
00:32:05,840 --> 00:32:07,480
Speaker 4: out on their science project or you're helping them with

750
00:32:07,480 --> 00:32:09,400
Speaker 4: their works, so that you can then have that conversation

751
00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:11,800
Speaker 4: while you're shoveling snow, or while you're watching a hose

752
00:32:12,120 --> 00:32:15,440
Speaker 4: spray water into a reservoir, or driving on in a vehicle,

753
00:32:15,440 --> 00:32:17,320
Speaker 4: while you're out on the quad bikes and you're looking at.

754
00:32:17,280 --> 00:32:18,560
Speaker 3: Penguins or changing cameras.

755
00:32:19,080 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 4: That was the best way to keep in touch with

756
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:23,240
Speaker 4: the team, and I started to lose contact with a

757
00:32:23,240 --> 00:32:26,160
Speaker 4: few of them who just weren't keen on some bit.

758
00:32:26,240 --> 00:32:28,160
Speaker 4: So that became a bigger challenge, and then you're starting

759
00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:31,560
Speaker 4: to go, Okay, if I'm losing direct contact with this individual,

760
00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:34,200
Speaker 4: who does slove contact? What friendship networks have they got

761
00:32:34,240 --> 00:32:36,120
Speaker 4: on station? Are they talking to the deputy station? They

762
00:32:36,160 --> 00:32:37,680
Speaker 4: are they talking to the doctor, They're talking to their

763
00:32:37,720 --> 00:32:40,480
Speaker 4: boss and their other mates, and that's enough for great.

764
00:32:40,480 --> 00:32:43,920
Speaker 4: They're fine or they're managing their own mental well being

765
00:32:44,440 --> 00:32:47,040
Speaker 4: without me. And yet some people did want their boss

766
00:32:47,040 --> 00:32:49,000
Speaker 4: involved and that others didn't, and so having to just

767
00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:52,960
Speaker 4: constantly work with that became a real day to day

768
00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:57,440
Speaker 4: grind of just keeping every individual on track, but keeping

769
00:32:57,440 --> 00:32:58,120
Speaker 4: the group on track.

770
00:32:58,200 --> 00:32:58,920
Speaker 3: So that was tough.

771
00:32:59,520 --> 00:33:01,160
Speaker 4: But keeping my selfh one track then became the other

772
00:33:01,200 --> 00:33:03,800
Speaker 4: part of it, and that was too pronged. One was,

773
00:33:03,880 --> 00:33:06,320
Speaker 4: like I said before, my brilliant deputy. She kept me

774
00:33:06,360 --> 00:33:09,640
Speaker 4: in check. And I had a couple of other quasi

775
00:33:09,720 --> 00:33:14,200
Speaker 4: deputies in different leadership groups on the station who they

776
00:33:14,280 --> 00:33:16,360
Speaker 4: backed me up, and they backed me in on a

777
00:33:16,360 --> 00:33:18,200
Speaker 4: lot of stuff as well, to kind of help out

778
00:33:18,400 --> 00:33:20,160
Speaker 4: rather than create a divide. They'd be like, no, that's

779
00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:22,200
Speaker 4: what Dave said, We're happy we do it that way,

780
00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:24,480
Speaker 4: and you just go bloody hell, thanks for that, because

781
00:33:24,480 --> 00:33:26,800
Speaker 4: if they'd gone the other way, then you've got other issues.

782
00:33:26,840 --> 00:33:29,800
Speaker 4: So that was great to bounce ideas off them or

783
00:33:29,800 --> 00:33:33,720
Speaker 4: be able to feel that we could park the formal hierarchy,

784
00:33:33,760 --> 00:33:37,440
Speaker 4: to just be same level. Two people stuck in this

785
00:33:37,480 --> 00:33:40,480
Speaker 4: scenario and have those chats on station was really important.

786
00:33:40,920 --> 00:33:43,680
Speaker 4: The other one was then chatting to the other station leaders.

787
00:33:43,680 --> 00:33:46,600
Speaker 4: So yes, we're thousands of kilometers apart, but we could

788
00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:48,240
Speaker 4: set up a zoom link for a phone call and

789
00:33:48,280 --> 00:33:51,600
Speaker 4: we'd do a weekly or fortnightly catch up and we

790
00:33:51,800 --> 00:33:56,360
Speaker 4: laugh at each other's problems, and that became this great

791
00:33:56,360 --> 00:34:00,520
Speaker 4: in the face of adversity, absolutely and classic and some

792
00:34:00,560 --> 00:34:03,239
Speaker 4: of the tougher moments as well, which I had and

793
00:34:03,280 --> 00:34:07,440
Speaker 4: my team had. You then be looking to history to go, well, yeah,

794
00:34:07,840 --> 00:34:10,359
Speaker 4: nothing that happened to us had never happened before, but

795
00:34:10,360 --> 00:34:11,879
Speaker 4: it had never all really happened.

796
00:34:11,600 --> 00:34:15,720
Speaker 3: In the same year, and that became really important.

797
00:34:15,760 --> 00:34:18,879
Speaker 4: Then those outlets of speaking other stations, but they're looking

798
00:34:18,920 --> 00:34:22,440
Speaker 4: at historical examples, and one of the worst it really

799
00:34:22,680 --> 00:34:23,640
Speaker 4: that ties the book together.

800
00:34:23,640 --> 00:34:25,439
Speaker 3: But one of the lowest points is when one member

801
00:34:25,480 --> 00:34:26,040
Speaker 3: of the team he.

802
00:34:26,120 --> 00:34:28,399
Speaker 4: Just had it, had enough of this particular job we're

803
00:34:28,400 --> 00:34:30,920
Speaker 4: doing at the time and the whole situation. He just

804
00:34:30,960 --> 00:34:33,239
Speaker 4: sort of let it out. He's like, mate, I can't

805
00:34:33,280 --> 00:34:36,040
Speaker 4: do this anymore. This F that, F the government, F

806
00:34:36,080 --> 00:34:38,600
Speaker 4: the ship, F the planes, and I quit. And I'm like,

807
00:34:38,640 --> 00:34:42,480
Speaker 4: what the is going on? You can't quit where you're

808
00:34:42,480 --> 00:34:42,799
Speaker 4: gonna go?

809
00:34:42,840 --> 00:34:43,440
Speaker 3: What are you gonna do?

810
00:34:43,560 --> 00:34:45,399
Speaker 4: And part of your brains like, all right, we'll cook

811
00:34:45,480 --> 00:34:47,560
Speaker 4: take a tent in six months where the rations and

812
00:34:47,800 --> 00:34:49,960
Speaker 4: going off, you go, and you can't do that. You're like, now,

813
00:34:50,000 --> 00:34:51,279
Speaker 4: we're going to get him back to work. We've got

814
00:34:51,320 --> 00:34:52,960
Speaker 4: to work out a plan here. You've got to work

815
00:34:52,960 --> 00:34:54,799
Speaker 4: with HR and the sites and the doctors and the

816
00:34:54,840 --> 00:34:55,680
Speaker 4: team and everything.

817
00:34:55,760 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 2: You just that's why, that's why I asked these questions

818
00:34:59,000 --> 00:35:02,200
Speaker 2: about yourself. Because one someone's head is out the game,

819
00:35:03,040 --> 00:35:06,080
Speaker 2: or they lose hope and they lose belief, and you know,

820
00:35:06,320 --> 00:35:10,600
Speaker 2: they lose sight of the mission. It's super hard right

821
00:35:10,680 --> 00:35:13,040
Speaker 2: to be able to bring them back into the fold.

822
00:35:13,400 --> 00:35:14,879
Speaker 2: Psychologically for sure.

823
00:35:14,960 --> 00:35:17,520
Speaker 3: I mean a lot of that came down to control.

824
00:35:17,640 --> 00:35:20,880
Speaker 4: So there's so many regulations and rules around going outside,

825
00:35:20,880 --> 00:35:22,960
Speaker 4: all these different things that that had kind of overwhelmed

826
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:26,080
Speaker 4: him a bit, and we were able to get him

827
00:35:26,400 --> 00:35:28,920
Speaker 4: realigned and change his role and change a few parameters,

828
00:35:28,920 --> 00:35:30,520
Speaker 4: which then I had to extend to the whole team,

829
00:35:30,560 --> 00:35:32,480
Speaker 4: which was something as well, you go, well, don't just

830
00:35:32,520 --> 00:35:34,319
Speaker 4: focus on your bad eggs. Whatever you've done for them,

831
00:35:34,360 --> 00:35:35,799
Speaker 4: you got to do that for your good eggs. What

832
00:35:35,840 --> 00:35:39,239
Speaker 4: about the twenty two other people that didn't quit? And

833
00:35:39,280 --> 00:35:41,480
Speaker 4: that was a good leadership lesson in some of those

834
00:35:41,560 --> 00:35:44,480
Speaker 4: elements as well. I'm spending a lot of time focusing

835
00:35:44,600 --> 00:35:48,640
Speaker 4: on problems, but what about the other end of that spectrum?

836
00:35:48,680 --> 00:35:52,200
Speaker 4: What am I doing to encourage and reward the good

837
00:35:52,560 --> 00:35:55,480
Speaker 4: side of it? And that, Funnily enough, they were all

838
00:35:55,480 --> 00:35:57,520
Speaker 4: pretty happy anyway. I'm like, I'm going to everything I've

839
00:35:57,520 --> 00:35:59,680
Speaker 4: done to solve this issue. If you need to change anything.

840
00:35:59,680 --> 00:36:02,000
Speaker 4: They're like, we're happy, We're good. I'm like, okay, well

841
00:36:02,040 --> 00:36:04,799
Speaker 4: that's easy. And yet at the same time, it was

842
00:36:04,800 --> 00:36:08,319
Speaker 4: a weird parallel that that same scenario had happened on

843
00:36:08,440 --> 00:36:11,960
Speaker 4: Shackleton's expedition, the Trans Antarctic Expedition in you know, back

844
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:14,359
Speaker 4: in nineteen fourteen, where a member of his team had

845
00:36:14,400 --> 00:36:16,359
Speaker 4: quit as well, and that goat me a good laugh

846
00:36:16,400 --> 00:36:19,000
Speaker 4: of like, oh, well, every Antarctic leader wants to be

847
00:36:19,080 --> 00:36:21,840
Speaker 4: up there with Shackleton and I'm like, well, now I

848
00:36:21,960 --> 00:36:22,520
Speaker 4: get some.

849
00:36:22,440 --> 00:36:25,080
Speaker 3: Sense of how he felt about whenever his team quit.

850
00:36:25,120 --> 00:36:28,000
Speaker 4: And I'm like, God didn't like what a ridiculous scenario,

851
00:36:28,080 --> 00:36:30,080
Speaker 4: But he dealt with he and I kind of went

852
00:36:30,280 --> 00:36:31,719
Speaker 4: along the same tracks as He's like.

853
00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:34,000
Speaker 3: You deal with it head on, you chat to the individual,

854
00:36:34,040 --> 00:36:34,600
Speaker 3: you work out a.

855
00:36:34,560 --> 00:36:36,480
Speaker 4: Plan, and you get them back because everyone has to

856
00:36:36,520 --> 00:36:37,919
Speaker 4: work and everyone has to be part of the team.

857
00:36:37,920 --> 00:36:40,960
Speaker 2: And so as all this was going on, say, the

858
00:36:41,040 --> 00:36:45,720
Speaker 2: chaos of the unknown, of uncertainty, of you know, people

859
00:36:45,960 --> 00:36:49,560
Speaker 2: suffering back at home families. You know, how did that

860
00:36:49,600 --> 00:36:50,360
Speaker 2: affect the mission?

861
00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:53,160
Speaker 4: Well, a huge part of your mission down there is surviving,

862
00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:56,080
Speaker 4: so you can't down tools. And that's really a lot

863
00:36:56,080 --> 00:36:57,640
Speaker 4: of that's on the trades team, which is more than

864
00:36:57,640 --> 00:37:00,640
Speaker 4: half the station, the mechanics, the plumbers, the spark's, carpenters,

865
00:37:01,280 --> 00:37:04,920
Speaker 4: the chef, and everyone. If they're not working, we're not surviving.

866
00:37:05,080 --> 00:37:08,239
Speaker 4: And everyone supports elements of that. Everyone's on the search

867
00:37:08,280 --> 00:37:09,400
Speaker 4: and rescue teams and fires.

868
00:37:09,960 --> 00:37:12,400
Speaker 2: So you needed each other to survive one percent.

869
00:37:12,520 --> 00:37:14,120
Speaker 3: You can't stop.

870
00:37:14,680 --> 00:37:17,560
Speaker 4: Even when we'd have a day off, six people and

871
00:37:17,600 --> 00:37:20,120
Speaker 4: one of the leadership team would be on call at

872
00:37:20,120 --> 00:37:21,840
Speaker 4: all times, and even then.

873
00:37:21,800 --> 00:37:23,919
Speaker 3: You're all on call all time, all the time.

874
00:37:24,040 --> 00:37:26,640
Speaker 4: So yes, it might be there's six people who are

875
00:37:26,680 --> 00:37:28,680
Speaker 4: at a higher degree of readiness and they're sober and

876
00:37:28,719 --> 00:37:30,520
Speaker 4: they're ready to go, and they're on station.

877
00:37:31,640 --> 00:37:34,359
Speaker 2: Talk about the purpose correct, So yeah, at.

878
00:37:34,280 --> 00:37:36,040
Speaker 4: The same time, they might they're just the first six

879
00:37:36,120 --> 00:37:39,120
Speaker 4: responders to a building burning down. Now there's double and

880
00:37:39,160 --> 00:37:42,440
Speaker 4: triple redundancy with most of the buildings and situations, but

881
00:37:42,840 --> 00:37:44,719
Speaker 4: if we were to lose the main mess facility, or

882
00:37:44,719 --> 00:37:48,560
Speaker 4: the main storage warehouse, or the main generator house and everything,

883
00:37:49,120 --> 00:37:52,719
Speaker 4: it would be disastrous and really really would put us

884
00:37:52,960 --> 00:37:55,640
Speaker 4: all of the risk of changing it from a very

885
00:37:55,680 --> 00:38:00,480
Speaker 4: easily survivable situation logistically to a massive challenge. Well, hang

886
00:38:00,480 --> 00:38:03,279
Speaker 4: on a minute. We've lost our main powerhouse, and we've

887
00:38:03,320 --> 00:38:05,240
Speaker 4: lost all of the food from.

888
00:38:05,040 --> 00:38:05,920
Speaker 3: The main security.

889
00:38:05,920 --> 00:38:08,160
Speaker 4: We're now down to the buckets of flour and sugar

890
00:38:08,840 --> 00:38:12,280
Speaker 4: for another six months, so you've got.

891
00:38:12,040 --> 00:38:13,120
Speaker 3: To take that stuff seriously.

892
00:38:13,160 --> 00:38:15,160
Speaker 4: So that kind of helped kept us focus of well,

893
00:38:15,239 --> 00:38:16,680
Speaker 4: if we want to go home, we've got to keep

894
00:38:16,680 --> 00:38:19,080
Speaker 4: working hard to keep the place running and leave it

895
00:38:19,320 --> 00:38:21,040
Speaker 4: running well for the next group.

896
00:38:21,320 --> 00:38:25,319
Speaker 2: So your plan or the project was meant to be

897
00:38:25,400 --> 00:38:28,000
Speaker 2: three hundred and sixty five days long. It's supposed to

898
00:38:28,040 --> 00:38:31,960
Speaker 2: be a year. You end up after five hundred and

899
00:38:31,960 --> 00:38:37,960
Speaker 2: thirty seven days getting a call to say that you

900
00:38:37,960 --> 00:38:41,279
Speaker 2: know it's it's over. Took me through that call when

901
00:38:41,800 --> 00:38:46,440
Speaker 2: you knew that you were going home ultimately, and this

902
00:38:46,520 --> 00:38:47,040
Speaker 2: is this.

903
00:38:47,040 --> 00:38:49,759
Speaker 4: Is such a good story in terms of it ain't

904
00:38:49,800 --> 00:38:52,279
Speaker 4: over till it's over. So we got picked up and

905
00:38:52,360 --> 00:38:54,600
Speaker 4: so we did the station handover. It's actually day about

906
00:38:54,600 --> 00:38:57,440
Speaker 4: four hundred and ninety nine when we formally handed over

907
00:38:57,480 --> 00:39:00,000
Speaker 4: the station to the replacement team. Jumped on the ice

908
00:39:00,040 --> 00:39:01,800
Speaker 4: break and we had to go past one of the

909
00:39:01,840 --> 00:39:05,120
Speaker 4: other Australian Antarctic stations at Mawson, which by which point

910
00:39:05,120 --> 00:39:07,440
Speaker 4: we were very late in the Antarctic season. So due

911
00:39:07,480 --> 00:39:09,880
Speaker 4: to the pack ice, we couldn't get close enough to

912
00:39:09,880 --> 00:39:12,520
Speaker 4: the station. We're about ninety nautical miles away, which is

913
00:39:13,280 --> 00:39:15,880
Speaker 4: for Australians listing it to the distance across Baths Strait,

914
00:39:15,920 --> 00:39:19,480
Speaker 4: I think it's probably the distance from Bloody Scotland to

915
00:39:19,520 --> 00:39:21,600
Speaker 4: Norway or something like that as well across the North Sea,

916
00:39:21,800 --> 00:39:23,920
Speaker 4: so considerable distance about to a helicopter fly off of

917
00:39:23,960 --> 00:39:26,000
Speaker 4: this station. So we ended up on the boat for

918
00:39:26,040 --> 00:39:29,120
Speaker 4: about a month before we even got back to Australia.

919
00:39:29,320 --> 00:39:31,359
Speaker 3: But when we finally finished.

920
00:39:31,000 --> 00:39:34,880
Speaker 4: That resupply set course for Hobart, you know, finally, and

921
00:39:34,960 --> 00:39:39,319
Speaker 4: this is now early late March, early April twenty and

922
00:39:39,480 --> 00:39:42,400
Speaker 4: twenty one, we knew, okay, we're going to be home

923
00:39:42,560 --> 00:39:43,000
Speaker 4: that yes.

924
00:39:43,080 --> 00:39:44,560
Speaker 3: Besides, we've done everything we need to do.

925
00:39:44,640 --> 00:39:47,759
Speaker 4: We're now just on the ship as passengers and we're

926
00:39:47,760 --> 00:39:49,960
Speaker 4: setting a course across the Southern Ocean. Two weeks from

927
00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:52,359
Speaker 4: now we'll sail into Hobart and the whole journey will

928
00:39:52,360 --> 00:39:56,040
Speaker 4: be over. And that's when it goes from just ridiculous

929
00:39:56,080 --> 00:39:58,440
Speaker 4: to hilarious in terms of what happened to us. Because

930
00:39:58,480 --> 00:40:01,360
Speaker 4: on the fifth of April, halfway across the Southern Ocean,

931
00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:03,600
Speaker 4: the nearest land is a place called Herd Island, which

932
00:40:03,640 --> 00:40:05,920
Speaker 4: is in the middle of absolutely now in the Southern

933
00:40:05,960 --> 00:40:09,040
Speaker 4: Indian Ocean, near the Kirgalen Plateau and the Kerbland Islands,

934
00:40:09,160 --> 00:40:14,319
Speaker 4: which is a French outpost pretty much uninhabited. And ten

935
00:40:14,400 --> 00:40:16,680
Speaker 4: fifty eight in the morning I get rudely awoken from

936
00:40:16,680 --> 00:40:18,879
Speaker 4: my morning nap by the sound of the ship's fire

937
00:40:18,920 --> 00:40:21,640
Speaker 4: alarms and the captain just declaring fire, fire, fire, fire

938
00:40:21,640 --> 00:40:24,400
Speaker 4: in the engine room, not a drill. Grab my life jacket,

939
00:40:24,440 --> 00:40:26,799
Speaker 4: grab my survival gear. Head down to the folks, all

940
00:40:26,800 --> 00:40:29,839
Speaker 4: the ship. One hundred people standing in the folks, all

941
00:40:29,880 --> 00:40:33,040
Speaker 4: of the ship. It's zero degrees outside six meter swell.

942
00:40:33,600 --> 00:40:34,600
Speaker 4: Ship's now dead.

943
00:40:34,400 --> 00:40:34,839
Speaker 3: In the water.

944
00:40:34,880 --> 00:40:37,040
Speaker 4: You beam on to six meter waves, so you're rolling

945
00:40:37,200 --> 00:40:39,799
Speaker 4: thirty degrees either way, holding onto things to try and

946
00:40:39,840 --> 00:40:40,200
Speaker 4: keep going.

947
00:40:40,239 --> 00:40:43,200
Speaker 3: And the fire. If you look in the book or look.

948
00:40:43,080 --> 00:40:45,320
Speaker 4: Online for this, and it's a ship called the MPV Everest,

949
00:40:45,880 --> 00:40:48,640
Speaker 4: the fire had engulfed the entire engine room. This massive

950
00:40:48,680 --> 00:40:50,920
Speaker 4: fireball exploded out one of the air intakes, and the

951
00:40:51,000 --> 00:40:53,759
Speaker 4: ship was in a real bad state and they had

952
00:40:53,800 --> 00:40:56,040
Speaker 4: no guarantee they were going to get the thing going again.

953
00:40:56,120 --> 00:40:59,200
Speaker 4: So we were very very very very close to jumping

954
00:40:59,239 --> 00:41:01,279
Speaker 4: on those lifeboats now abandoned ship in the middle of

955
00:41:01,320 --> 00:41:05,120
Speaker 4: freaking nowhere, And we stood there for six hours until

956
00:41:05,120 --> 00:41:07,680
Speaker 4: we did finally get the credit to the ship's crew

957
00:41:07,719 --> 00:41:09,360
Speaker 4: and a number of my team. We fought the fire

958
00:41:09,480 --> 00:41:12,600
Speaker 4: boundary cooled and did all this incredibly heroic stuff to

959
00:41:12,880 --> 00:41:16,239
Speaker 4: get the ship under control safe and then get the

960
00:41:16,360 --> 00:41:19,520
Speaker 4: other remaining engine house operable, which had a whole lot

961
00:41:19,520 --> 00:41:22,719
Speaker 4: of other challenges systematically. It is a brand new icebreaker,

962
00:41:22,760 --> 00:41:25,279
Speaker 4: which a bit like a Tesla. If a Tesla is

963
00:41:25,320 --> 00:41:27,040
Speaker 4: not working perfectly, it's like I don't want to drive

964
00:41:27,040 --> 00:41:29,719
Speaker 4: today because one tires of it flat. This ship was

965
00:41:29,719 --> 00:41:32,040
Speaker 4: the same, I'm not driving on one engine while one

966
00:41:32,080 --> 00:41:35,200
Speaker 4: engine's exploded, and they had to kind of reprogram at

967
00:41:35,280 --> 00:41:38,400
Speaker 4: safety settings to go no, no, no, the best thing you

968
00:41:38,440 --> 00:41:39,320
Speaker 4: can do is drive.

969
00:41:39,160 --> 00:41:39,720
Speaker 3: On one engine.

970
00:41:39,800 --> 00:41:41,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's okay. Yeah.

971
00:41:41,560 --> 00:41:44,640
Speaker 4: And finally, so at reduced pace and about half speed

972
00:41:45,280 --> 00:41:47,920
Speaker 4: somewhere between about three and five knots, we limped home

973
00:41:48,040 --> 00:41:51,240
Speaker 4: to then Fremantle, which was slightly closer on the western

974
00:41:51,280 --> 00:41:55,200
Speaker 4: coast of Australia. And there was a strange poetic factor

975
00:41:55,200 --> 00:41:58,160
Speaker 4: that that like the last Australians or the last members

976
00:41:58,160 --> 00:42:00,560
Speaker 4: of my family to sail into Fremantle, that actually been

977
00:42:00,560 --> 00:42:02,759
Speaker 4: my grandparents and my father when they'd arrived in the

978
00:42:02,800 --> 00:42:06,399
Speaker 4: nineteen fifties. So there was this sort of funny end

979
00:42:06,480 --> 00:42:08,720
Speaker 4: of like I was standing on the heli deck of

980
00:42:08,760 --> 00:42:10,839
Speaker 4: the ship as we sailed into Freematt with the news

981
00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:13,640
Speaker 4: helicopters trying to circle and get footage of the burnt

982
00:42:13,680 --> 00:42:16,560
Speaker 4: out sections of the ship and the damage as we

983
00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:20,520
Speaker 4: sailed in, And that was just such a strange but

984
00:42:20,640 --> 00:42:25,799
Speaker 4: somewhat fitting end to be standing there and contemplating abandoning

985
00:42:25,840 --> 00:42:29,319
Speaker 4: ship in that situation. And that was the moment where

986
00:42:29,360 --> 00:42:31,799
Speaker 4: you really realize what my team had been through is

987
00:42:31,840 --> 00:42:33,840
Speaker 4: they were the ones that jumped on fire hoses, that

988
00:42:33,880 --> 00:42:36,240
Speaker 4: were helping people with their survival gear and helping people

989
00:42:36,280 --> 00:42:39,320
Speaker 4: understand it, and they really just talk.

990
00:42:39,120 --> 00:42:40,400
Speaker 3: About rising to an occasion.

991
00:42:40,560 --> 00:42:42,319
Speaker 4: You'd think at the end of that we would have

992
00:42:42,360 --> 00:42:46,120
Speaker 4: gone like, oh, bugger, this what a ridiculous situation. I

993
00:42:46,120 --> 00:42:48,320
Speaker 4: can't believe this is happening. We all just went Okay,

994
00:42:48,680 --> 00:42:49,640
Speaker 4: of course, the ship's on fire.

995
00:42:50,200 --> 00:42:52,240
Speaker 3: That'll do. Let's go fire hoses.

996
00:42:52,280 --> 00:42:55,640
Speaker 4: Life Jacket's helped people where we can and do what

997
00:42:55,680 --> 00:42:58,120
Speaker 4: we can to be part of the emergency response, which

998
00:42:58,280 --> 00:43:03,400
Speaker 4: became a really strange situation as well as we weren't

999
00:43:03,400 --> 00:43:05,759
Speaker 4: out of the woods. It dragged on for another It

1000
00:43:05,760 --> 00:43:08,440
Speaker 4: took another week to stay off home. Every time the

1001
00:43:08,480 --> 00:43:11,759
Speaker 4: ship's engine would even shudder or change speed, people would

1002
00:43:11,760 --> 00:43:13,760
Speaker 4: just be out of their cabins, being like, what's happening something,

1003
00:43:13,760 --> 00:43:15,520
Speaker 4: what we're doing?

1004
00:43:15,560 --> 00:43:17,759
Speaker 3: We're doing four knots now and then we're doing five four.

1005
00:43:20,280 --> 00:43:23,600
Speaker 2: Well, mate, yeah, that was still think everyone's like me

1006
00:43:23,640 --> 00:43:25,960
Speaker 2: a cats, what's going on exactly?

1007
00:43:25,800 --> 00:43:27,799
Speaker 4: And rather than before that, everyone just to sort of

1008
00:43:27,760 --> 00:43:30,239
Speaker 4: sitting in the cabins watching movies and reading books with

1009
00:43:30,280 --> 00:43:32,960
Speaker 4: them in their cabin mate. Everyone would prop their doors open,

1010
00:43:33,040 --> 00:43:35,239
Speaker 4: and it was very social on the ship, as we

1011
00:43:35,320 --> 00:43:39,200
Speaker 4: all just sought to have this kind of unity of Ye,

1012
00:43:39,320 --> 00:43:41,360
Speaker 4: we're all stuck in this burning boat together.

1013
00:43:41,600 --> 00:43:44,359
Speaker 3: What's we're going to go down? Let's go down as friends.

1014
00:43:45,480 --> 00:43:47,480
Speaker 2: We're running out of time and I must wrap up,

1015
00:43:47,880 --> 00:43:51,600
Speaker 2: not that I want to. You've got a book called

1016
00:43:51,640 --> 00:43:56,560
Speaker 2: five hundred and thirty seven Days of Winter. Now I

1017
00:43:56,600 --> 00:43:58,920
Speaker 2: see that you've signed me a copy. I'm truly grateful,

1018
00:43:59,280 --> 00:44:00,960
Speaker 2: and I'm definitely gonna get my head in that book

1019
00:44:01,000 --> 00:44:07,399
Speaker 2: to to really bring it alive. Because talk about such

1020
00:44:07,440 --> 00:44:13,279
Speaker 2: a young age leading such teams and expeditions and programs,

1021
00:44:13,320 --> 00:44:17,960
Speaker 2: and you know, platoons, et cetera, et cetera, got nothing

1022
00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:21,120
Speaker 2: but admiration for you, mate. I know how hard it

1023
00:44:21,160 --> 00:44:24,799
Speaker 2: is to be a leader, and I know the hardships

1024
00:44:24,800 --> 00:44:27,640
Speaker 2: that come with it. If you add one word and

1025
00:44:27,719 --> 00:44:33,080
Speaker 2: one word only to describe leadership, one word. What would

1026
00:44:33,080 --> 00:44:37,359
Speaker 2: it be? Humble humble humidity. Yeah, you know what, That's

1027
00:44:37,440 --> 00:44:43,600
Speaker 2: exactly what I'm thinking. Stay humble humidity is definitely It

1028
00:44:43,640 --> 00:44:46,200
Speaker 2: helps you to really merge into a team, doesn't it.

1029
00:44:46,239 --> 00:44:49,719
Speaker 2: And it helps you It helps you listen and really

1030
00:44:49,719 --> 00:44:51,759
Speaker 2: take on board what other people are going through as well,

1031
00:44:51,800 --> 00:44:54,680
Speaker 2: so you can put yourself in their shoes and lead

1032
00:44:54,680 --> 00:44:58,400
Speaker 2: from the center. Listen, David, you're a great dude.

1033
00:44:58,400 --> 00:44:58,640
Speaker 3: Mate.

1034
00:44:58,640 --> 00:45:00,120
Speaker 2: It was great to speak to one of my home

1035
00:45:00,200 --> 00:45:02,640
Speaker 2: and have a conversation. That'll be fad. Thanks ever so much,

1036
00:45:02,680 --> 00:45:05,120
Speaker 2: May and thanks for coming on my podcast again.

1037
00:45:05,320 --> 00:45:06,600
Speaker 3: Cool. Thanks thanks for having me.

1038
00:45:07,920 --> 00:45:10,880
Speaker 2: David Knof is the author of five hundred and thirty

1039
00:45:10,880 --> 00:45:14,200
Speaker 2: seven Days of Winter. I'll link the details in the

1040
00:45:14,200 --> 00:45:18,040
Speaker 2: show notes. Thanks so much for joining me on Headgame.

1041
00:45:18,200 --> 00:45:21,239
Speaker 2: If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you're subscribed so

1042
00:45:21,280 --> 00:45:24,279
Speaker 2: you don't miss any of our incredible stories and leave

1043
00:45:24,320 --> 00:45:28,720
Speaker 2: me a review wherever you're listening, I'm at Middleton. Catch

1044
00:45:28,719 --> 00:45:30,240
Speaker 2: you again next time.