Rod Ledingham

Rod was raised in Scotland and first worked in the Antarctic in 1966 as a meteorologist for the British Antarctic Survey. He over-wintered in 1967 and 1968 at Adelaide Island (near Rothera Base) and Fossil Bluff. Rod returned briefly to the UK and in 1970 moved to Australia, working as a geologist for seven years before once again returning to the subantarctic with his wife. They wintered twice on Macquarie Island (1977 and 1980), and spent a summer at the site of Mawsons Australasian Antarctic Expedition Hut at Commonwealth Bay in 1979.

In 1980 Rod commenced work as field equipment and training officer with the Australians and remained there until 2002 equipping, training, and running expeditions and re-supply ships to the Australian sector bases Casey, Davis, and Mawson and several summer bases. Rod began escorting tourist voyages in 1991 and has visited Antarctica most seasons since 1976, mainly to the Ross Sea but also to the Peninsula, and has been on several partial circumnavigations and one complete circumnavigation of the continent.

Over the years, Rod has assisted with work on elephant and leopard seals, giant petrels, albatross, small petrels, penguins, geology, and geomorphology in the Antarctic and subantarctic. He lives in Tasmania with his wife Jeannie who has been south on nine trips and his daughter Kate who made her first trip to the Ross Sea when she was five, and four more trips since then. He also helps the Australian Antarctic Division with Zodiac driving instruction and is a volunteer at Mawson’s Huts Replica Museum in Hobart, Australia.