In May of that year, a team of scientists and volunteers took some of the pens with them on an expedition to the Charles Darwin bush heritage reserve in outback Western Australia. It's a pretty tough environment and the scientists were doing field research that was looking to measure the effects that feral animals like foxes and cats have on the native animal population.
May 2011 and another group of scientists and volunteers from Earthwatch were at the Charles Darwin reserve. Melbourne based volunteer, primary school teacher Karen Johns, was wandering through an area of scrub and noticed something on the ground. She picked it up –a PowerTank eco pen with an Earthwatch logo, covered in red mud. Karen immediately tested the pen on her hand, and much to her surprise it still worked.
The team from Earthwatch brought the pen back to Melbourne and rang the team at Mitsubishi Pencil as they were so amazed that a pen could still work after being lost in the desert for two years.
above: the Eartwatch team responsible for finding the pen.
The region encountered daytime air temperatures of up to 49 degrees celcius as well as sub-zero overnight temperatures and significant amounts of rain.
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