APPLICANTS for a job in a library don’t normally put down counting penguins in Antarctica, and clearing their guano, under previous employment.  But that is what Laura MacNeil, 38, from the Highlands, is doing.

Ms MacNeil is currently applying for positions relevant to the Masters degree in Information & Library Studies she gained from Strathclyde University, having earlier graduated with a degree in French, German and Russian from St Andrews University.

Neither particularly qualified her for her last job – she spent the winter (summer in the southern hemisphere) helping run the museum, shop and post office, at Port Lockroy on Goudier Island for the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust (UKAHT).

Ms MacNeil, from Lentran near Inverness, and three colleagues were also monitoring the main residents – around 800 breeding pairs of Gentoo penguins.

Her other previous employment was as a tour guide, driving buses round the Highlands and Islands – “I had got my coach driver’s licence” – while educating her passengers in Highland history and culture.

But in 2014 she saw the UKAHT advert. “While at university I remember reading a book about Antarctica, Terra Incognita, by Sara Wheeler and was fascinated by it, and over the years read more and more.”  She felt she had to go for the job, but didn’t get it. She reapplied last year and on November 1 set off for Argentina to catch a ship to her new place of work, along with three colleagues.

“On the way down on the ship we saw these massive icebergs, which made us feel we really had arrived.”

But it was hardly a place of solitude, she said.

“In German the name of the Gentoo penguin is Eselspinguin, which means donkey penguin, because of the braying sound they make.”

On top of that cruise liners were arriving at a rate of up to two a day. “There were more than 17,000 visitors who landed at Port Lockroy when I was there.”

The first permanent British base, it was established in 1944 and operated as a British Research station until it closed in 1962. It was designated a Historic Site and Monument under the Antarctic Treaty and in 1996 restored as a “living” museum as a tribute to the early pioneers.  “There are the clothes they used to wear, old food tins, equipment, skis, the old lounge area where they used to sit, and information on the science they carried out there from 1940s and 1950s.

“We had to give visitors a briefing on the island and the museum. The island is about the size of a football field but half of it is closed off so as not to disturb the penguins. We had to do a count of the penguin colony at different stages to see if the influx of visitors was having any impact.  “Over the 20 years there has been no change in the breeding success.”

But would more tourists not pose a threat to Antarctica? She said the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators (IAATO) which represents the cruise ships, had guidelines at each site.  “We could accept 60 visitors ashore at a time, to a maximum of 350 in a day. It is managed as well as possible. One of the things IAATO is looking at is what room is there for expansion. How many more can  be accommodated in accordance with the Antarctic Treaty?”