Christmas Day

Today was Christmas Day at sea. We were going towards the Antipodes Islands. There were many festivities to keep us busy. We saw some albatrosses and some orcas, but my photos of the orcas don’t show much. Both were present in the photo.

Campbell Islands

We reached the southernmost New Zealand sub Antarctic islands this afternoon, with enough time to visit the islands in our zodiacs. We weren’t allowed to go ashore as the islands are pest free, so we had an interesting journey close to the shore.

As we went out we could see lots of albatrosses rafting up in the water, 

and then flying off. 

Thousands of them were nesting on the cliffs. 

You can see that each of them has a nest made of grass. There are a few chicks amongst the birds, but most were still sitting on eggs.

There were fur seals here as well. 

And a lot of shags also nest here.

Auckland Islands

This morning we got up early and were taken by zodiac to Enderby Island, part of the group of Auckland Islands. Enderby, like most of the islands in the group, is pest free. However, Auckland Island (by far the largest) still has cats, mice and pigs. We landed at the opposite end of the beach than we expected, because sea lions had taken over our landing area, and there were also elephant seals on the beach. It was good that we landed at that end because we saw yellow eyed penguins (you can’t go closer than 50 metres to yellow eyed penguins because they’re very shy and don’t even like other penguins).

We also gave wide berth to the sea lions (they need 20 metres) and managed not to disturb them as we went towards the boardwalk which would take us across the plateau to the other side of the island.

When we returned to the beach, the sea lions were rather stroppy, and kept on chasing us. People needed to fend them off by standing still with umbrellas and sticks raised at 45 degrees, but as soon as the person holding the implements turned around, the sea lions continued to chase us. The houses are used for research and are rarely used.

We walked through the forest before coming to the boardwalk over the plain. 

There were many mega flora on the plain.

A spider’s web

And albatrosses were flying around

And nesting.

The boardwalk finished at the other side of the island, so we had a chance to see everything again on the way back.

After the walk, we loaded into the zodiacs and cruised around the edge of the bay. Unfortunately, I’d run out of battery, so I couldn’t take pictures, but we saw a lot more yellow eyed penguins, and a lot of column basalt.

In the afternoon we went out in the zodiacs to Musgrave Inlet on Auckland Island itself, and, where the cliffs were so sheer that cats and pigs couldn’t venture,

we saw lots of southern rockhopper penguins. 

We went into a sinkhole

and saw a fur seal halfway up the edge.

Tomorrow we continue our journey towards Campbell island.

Towards Auckland Islands

Because Macquarie island is so far away from other places, we have a sea day today and a sea day before we reached it. In fact, one of the problems with this trip is that there are a lot of sea days because the sub Antarctic islands are so far apart. 

Both times we had a bio security check. All our outerwear gets checked for seeds, miniature pebbles, plant matter, anything, and it’s all removed. Velcro is particularly painful as it picks up everything. Boots are pretty bad too. Every time we’re going to land on a new island we need to get checked - no check, no landing. There are picks, brushes and vacuum cleaners (to remove dust) to deal with everything. 

Each time we go out we walk through a disinfectant bath, and when we come back our boots are scrubbed, hosed with a high pressure washer and we walk through disinfectant again.

The islands all have their own unique species of plants and animals, so it’s important not to cross contaminate them.

During sea days we have a lot of things on the program. For instance, today we had birdwatching (there weren’t many birds because we weren’t going along the sea ridge like we did last time), two documentaries, two lectures, and a salsa dance class. Every day we have “tea time” (today was pavlova), where the pastry chef tries to fatten us some more, and some on the artists perform (we have four singers and three dancers).

Photo of the day.

Second Day at Macquarie Island

Today we went to the isthmus where the research station is located, 

and went for another walk on the island. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of its ecology and because it’s where the oceanic mantle has been exposed by plate tectonics between the Australian plate and the Antarctic plate. Unfortunately the actual geological area isn’t within the area we were allowed to visit, but at this point we were very close.

We saw gentoo penguins in amongst some of the station buildings.

There was a cormorant there building a nest.

And plenty of seals.

We walked along the path to the climb up to the lookout, 

and saw some of the boilers that sealers used to melt down the seals and penguins to make oil. 

We went up to the lookout where we could see the west side of the island.

In the afternoon we went around the island, and saw the largest colony of king penguins 

and the west side of the island before continuing our journey towards the Auckland Islands.