Outdoor-loving YHA Eskdale team member Kirsten Shaw spent last winter working at the British Antarctic Survey’s Rothera Research Station – and she’s heading back this year for another season-long stint. She’s this issue’s hostel hero.
There are times, in the Lake District, when you can feel on top of the world. It’s something Kirsten Shaw knows only too well. Having previously lived and worked in New Mexico and Switzerland, she moved back to the UK and felt the call of Cumbria. For the past four years she’s been a team member at YHA Eskdale, fitting in fell running, wild swimming and outdoor photography in her downtime. “It’s a really nice lifestyle,” she says. “It’s hard work, but you meet so many interesting people. We’re a fairly small team but we all get on really well. It’s amazing too, because you can finish work and just head outside.”
But from the top of the world – and you can see where we’re going here – she also knows how it feels at the bottom. When the British Antarctic Survey was recruiting for support staff for its Rothera Research Station, located on an Antarctic island some 8,800 miles from the Lake District, Kirsten’s CV made her a perfect fit. “For my first two winters with YHA I worked at YHA Borrowdale, which was really cool,” she explains, “but last year I applied for a position with the British Antarctic Survey. I was down there for four months.”
YHA and the British Antarctic Survey, it transpires, have something of a symbiotic relationship. “They’ve had quite a few staff who have worked for YHA,” explains Kirsten. “They’ve all been really well suited to the job and the lifestyle down there. The work of support staff on a research station is similar in many ways to what we do at hostels – everything from helping out in the kitchen to keeping the place clean and tidy. They guarantee five interview spots for YHA staff each year.”
The fact that she’s about to return to Antarctica for a second season speaks volumes about how positive the experience was. “It was amazing,” she says. “It’s quite hard to describe. It’s the southern hemisphere summer at that time of year, so it’s pretty much 24-hour daylight. Temperatures are around freezing and the scenery is stunning – you’re surrounded by sea and huge mountains.”
“The wildlife’s incredible too,” she continues. “Penguins, seals, whales. You can’t quite grasp the scale of it all. Peaks that look like they’re in touching distance are actually hundreds of kilometres away. But the thing that hits you most, if you get a quiet day when it’s not windy, is the absolute silence. It’s like nothing else.”
Although the base is surrounded by hundreds of miles of wilderness, life on the base is sociable. “There were up to 160 people on the station last year, because they’re currently building a new wharf for a research vessel. It will be busy this year too.”
And when work’s done for the day, is she still able to fit in outdoor exercise? Silly question. “There’s a crushed-rock runway that we play football on,” she laughs. “Some penguins staged a pitch invasion once. I even organised the first ever game of Quidditch in Antarctica – although we had to wait for the Muggle flying to finish first!” Top of the world? Bottom of the world? It’s all the same to Kirsten.
Check out Kirsten’s blog.
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