Thommo’s Epic Antarctic Adventures

I came across a fantastic You Tube account over the weekend which documents and Australian guy’s journey as he took on a job working in the Antarctic operating dozers and other items of equipment, and I thought it would be of interest to the Digger Man Blog followers.

Thomas Gersbach aka “Thommo” joined up to work for the Australian Antarctic Division for the 2022 – 2023 season. Swapping the blue skies and tropical heat of Australia for the freezing cold of Antarctica, Thommo, has signed up for a full 12 – 13-month deployment,

Thommo spent his first two months of employment in this role attending various training exercises around Hobart and Melbourne before being dispatched to the real jobsite. He and his fellow team mates at the AAD, are based at the Wilkins Aerodrome, where as operators they will help to build and maintain a so-called Blue Ice runway out on a glacier some 70km inland from the Casey Research Station, he was flown out there in October last year.

The team are using three Caterpillar D7R LGP dozers for pushing the snow, that the snow blowers shift of the runway that lies beneath. Two original D7’s on the job are approaching 12 years old now, while a newer model has racked up around 2,500 hours on the meter. Thommo says that in February two new Next-Gen D7 models will be arriving on the resupply boat.

The current tally of machinery on site consists of 3 x dozers, 2 x wheeled loaders, 2 x snow blowers, 2 x snow groomers, and 2 x diesel powered generators. Thommo says that they are thirsty pieces of kit and they are currently drinking around 40,000 litres of diesel per month!

It must be a very disorientating place to work, but boy oh boy, what an experience it must be, and a wonderful thing to have on your CV.

Checkout the video below and while you are there subscribe to Thommo's channel to continue following his journey.