emperor penguin
© Chris Hill
I did wonder if applying the "Ship of Fools" tag to Chris Turney and his shipmates wasn't just a bit rude, but take a look at this video, recorded before his departure, in which he talks about the trip. You have to say that Turney does not come over well. And to spend most of the interview discussing the life and death nature of the expedition and the hardships they will face, before revealing that he is taking his wife and family along, is almost too much.

You can see how the trip might end in a shambles.




Transcript

STEVE CANNANE, PRESENTER: Could the great British Antarctic explorer Robert Scott have survived his epic journey if he'd chosen his team more wisely? That's the view of Professor Chris Turney from the University of NSW who is about to lead one of Australia's largest science expeditions to the frozen continent.

In this second and final preview of his trip, Professor Turney tells reporter Margo O'Neill he's learnt from the life and death experiences of early explorers like Scott.

The producer is Brett Evans, the editor Chris Schembri.

MARGOT O'NEILL, REPORTER: How do you choose the right person to join a team heading to the Antarctic for nearly two months? It's been a tricky question for scientist Professor Chris Turney.

CHRIS TURNEY, CLIMATE CHANGE RESEARCH CENTRE, UNSW: So we've got a really good team and hopefully they won't go psycho on us. (laughs)

MARGOT O'NEILL: It's not entirely a joke. Some people go a little crazy on the frozen edges of the world.

CHRIS TURNEY: I mean, the Germans were a classic one. They were shooting at each other, trying to poison each other. Duels, the whole lot.

MARGOT O'NEILL: The Japanese expedition filmed themselves punching penguins in the face.

Why were the Japanese punching penguins?

CHRIS TURNEY: Who knows? (laughs) It's terribly wrong, I hasten to add. We won't be doing that!

(music: 'The Lark Ascending' by Ralph Vaughan Williams)

MARGOT O'NEILL: Even the most charismatic of Antarctic leaders, Ernest Shackleton, was willing to use his gun to keep order.

CHRIS TURNEY: He did prepare to shoot someone who was questioning his leadership style and basically he just stamped down there straight away and as a result that man survived and so did the rest of the team.

MARGOT O'NEILL: Will you be taking a small firearm?

CHRIS TURNEY: (laughs) No. No, I won't be taking a small firearm.

MARGOT O'NEILL: Professor Turney and his co-leader Dr Chris Fogwell are selecting PhD students for the expedition to help record thousands of measurements, assessing signs of climate change on the frozen continent.

CHRIS TURNEY: He doesn't look too scary. (laughs)

CHRIS FOGWELL, CCRC, UNSW: No.

MARGOT O'NEILL: But stereotypical, introverted geniuses need not apply.

CHRIS TURNEY: It's something that actually is a group effort. Everyone will be looked after. Everyone's looking after everyone else. Everyone's supporting one another's science. That sense of separation you just don't want. You can't have people who just don't want to talk to one another.

MARGOT O'NEILL: Initially there were few applicants, so Chris Turney re-versioned Ernest Shackleton's apocryphal advertisement: "Wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition assured."

CHRIS TURNEY: I always loved that advert.

MARGOT O'NEILL: Almost immediately his inbox overflowed, proving the spirit of adventure still lives.

CHRIS TURNEY: It seemed to have gone viral. We were getting a few applications before then and suddenly the blog entry went crazy.

APPLICANT VIDEO: "Antartica"? It's ANTARCTICA!

CHRIS TURNEY: (laughs) That's brilliant! Sold.

APPLICANT VIDEO: ... in particular to kids that science is not just a school subject. It's something alive. It's something that can be work, can be your future, can give life.

CHRIS TURNEY: Actually, that's very good. I like that.

FACILITATOR: Would you please join with me in welcoming Professor Chris Turney.

(audience applause)

MARGOT O'NEILL: Perhaps most scarily, there will also be members of the public onboard. Thirty public berths were sold over two legs to help fund the expedition.

CHRIS TURNEY: There are berths for sale, so if people are interested and would like to come south with us there's flyers outside. You would be most welcome.

MARGOT O'NEILL: But it's not exactly a luxury cruise and one of Australia's Mount Everest heroes and an Antarctic veteran, Greg Mortimer, was brought on to find the right kind of people.

GREG MORTIMER, MOUNTAINEER: People who can grasp the highs and lows of what we're going to do and it's quite a big ask, this trip. There has been some whittling going on over the last months and a few people have fallen by the wayside.

MARGOT O'NEILL: Choosing the wrong team member meant the difference between life and death for British explorer Robert Scott. Professor Turney researched the stories of last century's great ice men and became haunted by their fate.

CHRIS TURNEY: It's that sort of extreme environment. The smallest mistakes can cascade into a disaster.

MARGOT O'NEILL: He claims there was a remarkable cover-up of one such mistake and that it cost Robert Scott his life.

You think Scott could have lived?

CHRIS TURNEY: Yes, he could quite well have lived.

MARGOT O'NEILL: It's a famous tragedy: Robert Scott and some of his men starved after being trapped in a blizzard for nine days.

CHRIS TURNEY: They were just one day's walk from fresh supplies. The day after they died the blizzard finally broke. One day: that's all that beat them.

MARGOT O'NEILL: The problem, says Professor Turney, is that weeks earlier another member from Scott's team had raided supplies and eaten more than his share, leaving Scott short one day's provisions.

CHRIS TURNEY: What's been repressed is that actually some of the other members of the party took more than their fair share.

MARGOT O'NEILL: That one day's rations could have saved them.

CHRIS TURNEY: They would have been in with a chance which is an amazing story, absolutely incredible.

MARGOT O'NEILL: Australian scientist explorer Douglas Mawson did survive but just how he managed to stay alive is also generating controversy 100 years later, with claims that the Australian hero deliberately starved a colleague and then ate him.

Do you think Mawson would have starved his colleague because he knew that he would survive better than he?

CHRIS TURNEY: (laughs) No.

MARGOT O'NEILL: Do you think he would have eaten him?

CHRIS TURNEY: Eating is possible. He confessed that he considered it but he just couldn't do that.

MARGOT O'NEILL: Mawson recorded the location where he buried his colleague.

CHRIS TURNEY: Hard things to explain if you've... you've had a bit of a nibble. (laughs)

MARGOT O'NEILL: Professor Turney's expedition is unlikely to face such desperate hardship.

CHRIS TURNEY: This is arguably the most important piece of equipment on the whole expedition. Forget the science, I'll have a revolt, especially amongst the Kiwis. This is a portable espresso making machine.

MARGOT O'NEILL: Chris Turney's wife Annette and two children Kara and Robert are also going with him to help blog, Tweet and broadcast about the experience for schools around the world.

ROBERT TURNEY: Dad, on the blog, basically, it's just: day after day, more ocean.

CHRIS TURNEY: (laughs) Don't be dreadful! No one wants to read that!

Well, I think that's it, Chris, isn't it?

CHRIS FOGWILL: That's about it.

CHRIS TURNEY: Right, let's shut it up.

MARGOT O'NEILL: The expedition sails south tomorrow on a mission to revive the spirit of one of Australia's greatest scientific explorations for a new generation grappling with climate change.

Lateline will broadcast an update early next year.

Margot O'Neill, Lateline.

STEVE CANNANE: And Professor Turney's expedition sets off tomorrow by ship from Bluff near Invercargill in New Zealand on the first leg of its journey south.

And if you want to follow Chris Turney's adventures he will be blogging about the expedition on the ABC's science website.