World's southernmost post office seeks workers to sort mail, count penguins

March 14 (UPI) -- The world's southernmost post office is seeking three employees to spend four months sorting mail and counting penguins at Antarctica's "penguin post office."

U.K. Antarctic Heritage Trust, the organization that runs the so-called penguin post office at Britain's Port Lockroy base on Goudier Island, said it is seeking three people to staff the post office from November of this year until March 2025.

The workers' duties will include sorting through letters and postcards, selling postage stamps, running a small gift shop and keeping count of Port Lockroy's colony of about 1,500 gentoo penguins.

The post office processes up to 80,000 letters and postcards each year, the majority of which are mailed out by passengers on cruise ships that stop at the island during the Southern Hemisphere's summer.

The available positions are base leader, general assistant and shop manager. Applicants must be residents of the United Kingdom, and must be prepared to bunk with five other people, go long stretches without phone or Internet access and make do without running water for the duration of their stay.

The U.K. Antarctic Heritage Trust said there is one other important downside to consider: "the smell of guano for five months."