“Someday, when the world would return to normal, I hoped I could sail through polar skies in pursuit, not of an enemy man, but the secrets of nature that would help conquer the natural enemies of all mankind.”

The loss of millions of lives in the war forced Wilkins (and many others) to question the existence of a God, or whether or not humanity had a future. Wilkins’ three years in the Arctic, immediately followed by the slaughter of the Western Front, had forced him to refine and develop his plan for his life’s work.

Wilkins believed that the future of everyone on Earth depended on the increase of scientific knowledge and an understanding of the environment.

In 1919, Wilkins submitted a plan to the Royal Geographical Society for a series of research weather stations that could be set up in the Arctic and Antarctic. The plan was considered too difficult to implement because the the polar regions had still not been fully explored.

Wilkins decided that the first step to implementing his plan would be to explore the polar regions by aeroplane. The reliability and range of aeroplanes had improved greatly during the four years of the war, and Wilkins was eager to gain flying experience.

In November 1919, he joined a team which had entered a plane in the England-Australia Air Race. The four-person team got as far at Crete, where mechanical failure forced the plane to crash. Next, Wilkins joined an expedition travelling to Antarctica to map the continent from the air. The expedition was underfunded and failed to purchase planes or equipment. Wilkins managed to get as far at the Antarctic Peninsula, before returning north.

In 1921, he joined Sir Ernest Shackleton, who was leading an expedition to Antarctica. The expedition also got as far as South Georgia Island, where Shackleton died. After briefly reaching the Antarctic Peninsula, Wilkins and the other members of the expedition returned to London.

Wilkins travelled to Russia, where he filmed and wrote about the devastation caused by the famine that was happening. It made him more determined to carry on with his work of understanding the world’s environment and weather.

In 1922, Wilkins took the opportunity to return to Australia and travel through Queensland and the Northern Territory studying flora and fauna. He spent two years doing this, often living for long periods with First Nations peoples.

While in Australia he developed a plan for setting up a series of weather stations in Antarctica. With the help of the Royal Geographical Society of South Australia, Wilkins sought sponsors to fund an expedition to Antarctica using aeroplanes.

In 1925, he travelled to Norway to meet with explorer Roald Amundsen and purchase a plane that Amundsen was selling. While in Norway, Wilkins learned his attempt to raise funds for his Antarctic expedition had failed, and he did not have enough money to proceed.