Macquarie Island was first discovered in 1810 and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Southern Ocean, about halfway between New Zealand and Antarctica. It is very remote and cut off from the world for most of the year. There is however an Australian base which is home to 12 researchers and 3 rangers ... 3.5 million seabirds and 80,000 seals. The rangers look after this valuable wild life sanctuary having eradicated the introduced vermin [the island was declared vermin free in 2012]. The scientists conduct ongoing research into siesmic activity and have been monitoring the earths magnetic field since 1952.

Maintenance of the base buildings is critical, so natually they have a small maintenance workshop to keep the wooden buildings in the best condition possible. in this hostile environment. When they team decided they needed a new combination woodworker, they looked at all the options and chose the Minimax CU300 Classic Combination machine. It ticked all the boxes for the station: proven design, high quality and most important of all an excellent reputation for reliability all within a compact footprint and had multiple functions: a sliding table for crosscutting wood and panels, the spindle moulder, combined with a planer and thicknesser.

Joe who runs the workshop is a master builder .. he needs to be able to do pretty much everything to keep the base shipshape; Everything needs to be multipurpose in sucha remote spot - even Joe has multifunctions... he also doubles up as the Postmaster when the few tourist ships pass by. Joe is happy with his machine!