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media type="custom" key="6243659" My face suddently appered on the old Australian $100 bill!

Hello my name is sir douglas mawson. I am one of Australias most famous explorers On this page you will learn all about my exciting adventures!

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My terrific journey began in Yorshie, England 1882 when I was born.Exacly 2 years after i was born, we moved to Australia. For me, the deserts and rugged coasted lines of this ancient continet sparked a fascination for nature and an urge to lean how the earth was formed. At school I was quite a bright student and i was only 16 when i started to study at the univeersity of Sydney. I graduated in engineering and scienceand got a job teaching petrology( the study of the origin and structure of rocks) at the University of Adelaide.

My first chance to explore antarctica came when I was 26. I joined an expedition lead by british explorer, Ernest shackleton. On my journey to Antarctia I sailed on a ship called the "Aurora". Acompinied by Dr. Xavier Mertz and Ernest Shakelton.I sailed one thousand, five kilometers of packed ice. My aim was to map and explore the coastal area of Antarctica closet to Australia. I also have 2 wonderful Daughters. My team and I were the first to climb the top of Mount Erebus one of Antrctias highest and most active volcano and also the first to reach the Magnetic South Pole. This experience had captured me and I had my heart set on returning.

In 1991, when I was thirty years of age, I did just that- as leader of the first Australian expedition to antarctica, my aim was to map and explore the costal area closest to Australia. I selected my team and in the ship ( the aurora ) we sailed through 1500 km of pack ice to the antarctic coast line. Our first job was to build a hut, which we named the home of blizzard, after the 300km per hour winds that blew us off our feet.They were the most fearsome gales in the world.

My party travelled over a thousand km mapping the coastline, collecting geological samples and discovering massive glaciers. Despite our success, our journey proved tragic. Fighting appalling weather and poor light, we had to drag ourselves around the continent, but it was just too much for us. After many of the group dying, the we, the remaining people, were forced to eat the dogs. I was near death, my bones were aching, my face was covered in blood and my skin was peeling away. I wondered if I wuld ever get home to tell the tale. Little did I know that the cause of our weakness.was the amount of liver that we had eaten from the dogs. But despite my awful sickness, I eventually got better, and I found the strength to continue. My journey was described as the greatest story oflone survival in polar explration.

When I returned to Adelaide, I was knitted for my contribution to the scientific understanding of Antarctica. Soon after, I married Paquita Delprat,the woman he often thought Of throughout My Antarctic ordeal. I had 2 daughters that I spent a lot of his time with. In 1929 and 1931, I hosted 2 more voyages to Antarctica, this time on oceanography and marine biology. That resulted in Australia claiming 42% of the land, the size of Australia without queensland. I died at the age of 76 in 1958

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**ADVANTAGES ** - I love being out in the wilderness and I love exploring. - I have been where other people can only dream of. - I learn lots of new things that I enjoy teaching people. - I have become famous from all of my Explorations to Antarctica.

DISADVANTAGES:

- I often get crowded in the streets with people asking me questions, which I can not tell you how much I hate. - My work is very busy almost all year round. - I hardly ever get to see my family. - Going to Antarctica is a great risk because many bad things could happen to me

Douglas Mason showed stewardship on many occasions duri


 * I risked I life to save my fellow travelers on some of my voyages.


 * I shared my knowledge with everyone even though I was very proud and didn’t want everyone to copy me.


 * I was always noble and kind to all my fellow travelers and considered their ideas.


 * When we ran out of food, I gave the bigger portion to the other traveler/s.

Sir Douglas Mawson has done some fantastic work in Antarctica.

Some of the things that he has done include: -I have mapped the coastline on the side closest to Australia -I have discovered huge glaciers on the amazing land. -I have discovered many minerals in Antarctica, and collecting samples. -I studied important aspects of marine biology, and sharing my knowledge with marine biologists all over the world.



Douglas Mawson

**A Poem by Nigel Richards ** In 1913 lone Mawson suffers the wild Antarctic skies. That glacial land has slain his friends and swallowed his supplies. With bone-stretched skin, with food-crazed dreams, with pain at every tread, he staggers across the fissured ice, in lonely harness to famine’s sled. Then the trodden snow crust breaks: within a deep crevasse he falls. He grips the rope four meters down, between the upright icy jaws, Not knowing if the soft snowdrift will the straining sled dismiss, and feed him without mercy to the blue carnivorous abyss. With snow-filled clothes and frosted hands, escape seems just a mocking dream. Yet lunging up from knot to knot amidst thick clouds of panted steam, With grunts that shock the frozen quiet, he hauls up through the mouth he tore. But the treacherous lip of snow now snaps to plunge him down once more.

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