The idea of his journey came to him when he was 26 years old. He joined an expedition, lead by British Explorer Sir Ernest Shackelton. Mawson selected his team for the Australasion expedition and his ship "Aurora" sailed through 1500km of pack ice to the coast of Antarctica When he got there he and his crew built a hut which would be there home base and they named it "Home of the Blizzards". In Spring, 1912, lots of parties of explorers set out on foot. Mawson took with him, Swiss Scientist, Dr. Xavier Mertz and Lieutenant Belgrave Ninnis and a team of Greenland Huskies to pull their sleds. Mawson's party travelled East for thousands of kilometres, mapping the coastline, collecting geological samples and discovering huge glaciers. Only 5 weeks into the journey, Ninnis disappeared down a crevasse with a team of dogs carrying most of there food. Mawson and Mertz were forced to turn back and shot and ate their remaining huskies. Mertz became sick and eventually died too. Mawson did not know that the reason he died was because of the vitamin A in the dogs liver that was toxic to the human body. Mawson fell into a cevasse but was saved by a rope. He later wrote in his diary that he was tempted to cut the rope and give up. He decided to continue and pulled himself through more than 160km of blizzard snow and finally reached headquarters.
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