Mawson's Huts (Commonwealth Bay)

Protected since 1995, the main hut at Cape Denison was built in 1912 as the base of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition led by the geologist Douglas Mawson, in what turned out to be the windiest inhabited place at sea level anywhere on the planet, with sustained katabatic winds that have at times passed 320 km/h. The expedition suffered one of the best-remembered tragedies of the Antarctic Heroic Age when two of the three members of a sledging party lost their lives on a crossing, leaving Mawson to survive a weeks-long return journey alone that came close to costing him his life too.