NSW: Antarctic adventurers to enlighten kids, help save hut

AAP General News (Australia)
12-24-1998
NSW: Antarctic adventurers to enlighten kids, help save hut

By Scott McFarlane

SYDNEY, Dec 24 AAP - Jim and Yvonne Claypole don't believe in average family holidays.

Adventure is their drug, and the Melbourne couple refuse to do it by halves.

As most Australians swelter through January, Jim and Yvonne set out on their biggest
adventure yet - 12 months living in explorer Douglas Mawson's original Antarctic hut.

After negotiating tough seas in a 19-metre yacht, leaving Hobart on January 6, the pair
will install scientific equipment designed to save the hut from weathering and give an account
of their adventure to thousands of children via the Internet.

"We're adventurous people and the chance to spend a year in Antarctica alone just couldn't
be missed," Jim, a human resources trainer, said.

"It's going to be difficult to find something to beat this."

Jim, 51, said six months planning had gone into the trip, which involved their own Internet
site on which they would chronicle their day-to-day life and espouse Mawson's achievements.

"We've decided we want to share this journey with as many people as possible, so we've set
up a range of school programs so we can talk to school children around the world through
satellite phone and the Internet," he said.

"We believe Mawson was a great Australian and an unsung hero in many quarters.

"There's a lot of school children out there that don't know much about him."

Yvonne, 44, said the strength of their 27-year-old marriage would make a year of solitary
confinement possible.

"We know each other really, really well so I don't think we'll have any problems at all,"
the school teacher said.

She said the couple had long wanted to travel to Antarctica but the timing had never been
right, until this year when they saw a media item on living in the 86-year-old hut.

Jim said basic survival in sub-zero and often treacherous conditions would take up several
hours every day.

"Just making sure we've got enough water on the driest place on earth will take up a number
of hours a day," he said.

Jim is also taking a telescope to study the heavens from another of Mawson's huts.

The couple have two sons, Ryan, 24, and Ben, 21, who are fully backing the trip, Jim said.

Australian Museum researcher Vinod Daniel, who designed the scientific equipment the
Claypoles will install inside and outside the timber hut, said the trip provided a rare
opportunity to devise a preservation plan.

Jim and Yvonne will send information back via the Internet once a month, giving a snapshot
of the microclimate inside the building and allowing researchers to decide whether or not to
remove ice from the structure.

"With them being there they can physically collect the data and send it by the Internet to
us, which probably wouldn't have been possible using satellites and other equipment," Mr
Daniel said.

AAP shm/tsm/trm/br

KEYWORD: ANTARCTIC MAWSON

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