Motorcycling in Antarctica

This story is the result of two events that were separated by 53 years. The first was when, as a 22-year-old, I was preparing to spend a year in Antarctica running a telescope to study the Aurora Australis. Unable to sell my 350cc Velocette motorcycle for a reasonable price, I rode it the Melbourne docks in January 1960 where the Danish ice-breaker Thala Dan was berthed, and asked the ship’s Danish coxswain if he could load it on board for me. “No worries,” he said, “just drain the petrol out of it.” And so the motorbike went to Mawson station, where it gave many of us a lot of enjoyment when we rode it on the sea ice.