Protect and conserve
Looking for adventure, exploration, and candid wildlife encounters, reporter Andrea Vance and photographer Iain McGregor ventured to some of the world’s most isolated islands – just an overnight sail from Bluff.
I’ve got a bit of a thing for far-flung islands. The further away, the harder to get to, the more isolated, the better. Even more so if they are abandoned or uninhabited. A wilderness that can’t be tamed. Somewhere only a few people will ever set foot. A place where nature shows humans who really is boss.
I am Island Bagger Vance, in a life-long quest to tick off dots on the map.
My reporting career has already taken me far south, to the emerald fiords of the Auckland Islands, and the inhospitable, volcanic Antipodes Islands.
But the other three island groups: The Snares, Bounty Islands and Campbell Island, remained elusive.
Deep in the forbidding Southern Ocean, they lie on no regular shipping route and access is restricted.
All the subantarctic islands are National Nature Reserves, the highest possible conservation status. And that means only a limited number of people are allowed to visit each year, via private companies like Heritage Expeditions, which has sought permission from the Department of Conservation.
That keeps the islands in a near-pristine state and makes any visit a true privilege.
Money from the visitor concession fees is channelled back into conservation, even more vital now that the collapse of international travel has devastated tourismfunded conservation in other parts of the world.
The islands were first discovered 200 years ago and exploited by sealers, whalers, and farmers. But left alone after World War II, nature began to reclaim the region.
Now sleepy-eyed seal pups watch you as they bask on the shore. Giant elephant seals fart and bellow from their spot, wedged as they are into the sand. Hefty sea lion bulls bash chests, as ho¯ iho toboggan out of the waves and stroll past.
The swoops and falls of albatross circling the waves are hypnotic, as you stand above the soothing swirl of the icy blue southern ocean trailing in the wake of the Spirit of Enderby.
And there is sheer joy in watching rockhopper penguins bounce from stone to stone, or their crested cousins barrel down a sheer granite slide into the waves beneath.
From the bare, windswept rocks of the Bounty Islands, to the lush megaherb fields of Campbell Island, they are the world’s most important breeding site in the world for albatross, such as the southern royal albatross and endangered Antipodean albatross, as well as three species of penguin that exist only here.
The sandy beaches, cliff crevices and deep, clear waters are significant breeding grounds for the New Zealand fur seal, New Zealand sea lion, and elephant seal. Our rarest whale, the southern right, also comes here to breed.
In the midst of a global biodiversity crisis, which is causing great species loss in a short time period, these havens are critical.
Almost nowhere else on Earth can you get close to such an abundance and variety of wildlife. It is full immersion into the cycle of life.
Bare, slippery granite, pummelled by the Southern Ocean, and washed clean of soil and vegetation, the Bounty Islands appear to be one of the most inhospitable spots on Earth. They lie almost 700 kilometres southeast of the South Island, and with no safe anchorage or obvious landing sites, or freshwater, they are the most remote and least visited of New Zealand’s subantarctic islands. Their Ma¯ ori name – Moutere Hauriri – means ‘‘angry wind’’.
But the 22 rocks, scattered across an area of just 135 hectares, are heaving with life. Above the islands, the sky is filled with a thriving profusion of albatrosses, prions, shags and gulls.
They dive for fish, wheedling and crying, and crash-land onto the outcrops, splashed with guano, the solidified waste of seabirds.
The air is thick with the briny, rotting stink of basking fur seals. Shiny, black pups flop rapidly down the steep edges, occasionally taking out a group of penguins as they bowl into the waves.
Erect-crested and rockhopper penguins intermingle on the islets, standing with their beaks raised to the skies, like waiters in evening dress.
Deep into the Roaring Forties, the stormy latitudes that once struck fear into the hearts of mariners, these rocky platforms were discovered in September 1788 by Lieutenant William Bligh.
He named them after his ship, HMS Bounty, declared them a shipping hazard and sailed on towards Tahiti, and a mutiny.
Like Bligh, the passengers on an expedition voyage with Heritage Expeditions don’t step ashore.
The Department of Conservation affords the islands the most stringent protection to keep them unaltered by the effects of humans and introduced species.
Our cruise around these uninhabited islets is just one stop on an epic 12-day voyage to five island groups in one of the world’s most untouched and pristine places.
On Zodiac inflatable boats, we edge through a sea the colour of lead, alongside the granite shelves.
At first glance, everything blurs into a monochromatic landscape. But stare a little longer, and it is a colourful, ever-moving maelstrom of life.
Greenish-brown tentacles of kelp trail into the water, swaying with the tides.
Almost every ledge is occupied by an alert penguin, lazing seal, fluffy albatross chick or tiny, blue fulmar prion.
Salvin’s albatross (also known as mollymawks) look down their bills at us from the highest cliffs. A slash of charcoal grey across their hooded eyes make them appear pensive and mysterious.
Around 30,000 pairs squeeze onto the bare rock, which is their main breeding colony, sitting on nests made of feathers, seal hair and regurgitated food.
Endemic to New Zealand, they are at risk, and classified as vulnerable, although information on the Bounty’s wildlife is scant.
The subantarctic islands occupy what birders call the ‘‘albatross latitudes’’ – 10 of the world’s species breed here.
The islands are also a haven for the world’s rarest cormorant, the Bounty Island shag, of which there are only 500-600 left.
We bobbed around wave-washed Depot Island, captivated by the chattering, fluttering, scampering and tussling.
All around us were rafts of erect-crested penguins, either on their way out to sea or returning from a foraging trip. (When they come ashore, the group becomes a ‘‘waddle’’ of penguins).
These lonely cliffs, and the Antipodes Islands, are the world’s only known breeding grounds for erectcrested penguins.
The groups casually float around us, occasionally twisting in the water to wash bird poop from their adorable white bellies.
Then, without warning the raft moves as one: porpoising across the water in a series of consecutive leaps, propelling them towards the islands.
Occasionally, the group will disappear under the waves, and fail to emerge on land. That’s usually due to the presence of a fur seal, lurking below the kelp fronds. The pinnipeds aren’t actually a predator, but youngsters have been known to kill penguins in play.
Bathing seals also stop the flightless seabird slipping into the water. Dithering above the tideline, they make several false starts before crashing into the waves.
It’s a mesmerising spectacle that we watch over and over, hovering only a few metres from the Depot Island shore.
At 800 metres long (and 88m at its highest point), this is the largest of the islets, and so-called because it was once the site of a castaway depot.
Sealers marooned their gangs on the inhospitable terrain for long periods of time and, with little to occupy them but slaughter, they soon devastated the population of endemic New Zealand fur seals.
The skins were used for hats, and historians estimate half of the total haul were raided from the subantarctic islands.
Returned from the brink of extinction, they are now our most common native marine mammal, but numbers are probably still only about 10 per cent of the 19th-century population.
Approaching the Antipodes Islands, the sea underneath the Spirit of Enderby is glassy. Tendrils of sea fog are wrapped around tall basalt cliffs.
Known to Ma¯ ori as Moutere Mahue, the abandoned or deserted island, it is the most remote of New Zealand’s subantarctic islands, 750km southeast of the South Island.
The calm feels like an invitation, permission to explore its isolation.
As we cut across the ocean, Antipodean albatross quarter the ship’s wake. Albatross are the majestic
birds of mariners’ legends: in Moby Dick, Herman Melville writes of their ‘‘vast archangel wings’’.
In Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, once killed by a sailor, they become a symbol of bad luck, cursing a voyage.
It’s a superstition no longer held by modern-day crew: all but two of the 21 albatross species are recognised as vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered. The hooks, nets and trawl wires of efficient fishing operations inflict a heavy toll of drowning, injury and death.
The Antipodean albatross – which only breed on these islands – are thought to be dying at a rate of 800 a year. When we visit, our ship’s horn sounds a greeting: researchers Kath Walker and Graeme Elliott had arrived on the island just a few days earlier.
Each year, for the past two decades, they have committed to weeks at a time on these storm-lashed specks of land, trying to understand the reasons for this heartbreaking decline.
As we approach the Antipodes, dozens of the albatross are spotted from the bow, their enormous wings gliding just above the waves, without flapping.
Our journey is not cursed – and Coleridge’s ‘‘harbinger of fair breezes’’ has brought us conditions to allow a three-hour cruise around Ringdove Bay.
Tucked into the eroded basalt cliffs are rockhopper and erect-crested penguins. As our Zodiac nudges close to the rocks, an adult fur seal scratching his belly with a flipper, slowly blinks and lets out a long screech before settling back to sleep.
Curious juveniles twist and turn in front of the prow, their sleek bodies slipping in and out of the kelp. On the shore, we catch occasional glimpses of the strikingly marked subantarctic fur seal, with their cream and burnt orange chests and muzzles.
There is much to occupy the birders: the islands are home to two green-plumed parakeets. As they flit between tussock covered cliff-tops, it’s a challenge to distinguish between the Antipodes parakeet and the Reischek’s parakeet, distinctive because of its red crown.
For the ornithologists there are plenty of thrills. Light-mantled sooty, antarctic terns and fairy prions careen all around us. A clangour of shrieks, calls and mating cries echoes off the cliff walls.
But there is also a different kind of breathtaking experience awaiting the travellers, back on the Spirit of Enderby. The polar plunge is a rite of passage for those venturing into these southern meridians.
As well as constantly monitoring conditions to get the group to the most interesting landing and cruising sites, expedition leader Aaron Russ and Captain Aleksandr Pruss were looking for the perfect location for the Plunge.
There are no cold feet: passengers lined the deck, ready to immerse themselves fully in the subantarctic experience. Captain Pruss was the first to be inducted into the Antipodes Swim Club, executing a flawless dive into the frigid, sapphire waters.
After a hearty lunch, the afternoon is spent exploring more of the dramatic coastline, before the swells turn heavy.
Such is the joy of these smaller expeditions of around 50 people, able to respond nimbly to changes in weather, make the most of wildlife spotting opportunities, and allow passengers to spend more time off the ship in the environment. There is a much more intimate atmosphere on board: in a smaller group, friendships developed with shared meals, interests and experiences. Birdwatchers learned from the botanists, photographers swapped tips, and we all bonded over the uplifting encounters and beauty that only a few dozen people get to experience each year. Travellers on expedition cruise ships are eager to know about the nature and history of where they’re going, and the ship carries lecturers, historians and specialists, whose talks were central to the understanding of the voyage, from the biodiversity crisis threatening the region to the weather patterns that make it so unique. There are precious few places left in the world where creatures, great and small, rule. The Snares, only an overnight sail from Bluff, is one. Predators and pests – and that includes humans – are not welcome, and access is allowed only for research.
Native species and wild beauty have thrived. Muscovite granite thrust out of the sea 100 million years ago has worn into sea stacks, caves and vertiginous cliffs.
The top is forested with a thick green canopy of tree daisies and tussock, hiding a honeycomb of seabird burrows. There are tiny sprouts of Cook’s scurvy grass – which kept sailors alive in the early days of European exploration. But it is the islands’ residents that captivate. Hooker’s – or New Zealand sea lions – are the rarest in the world, and moodily tolerate our presence, occasionally barking a warning and baring sharp fangs with a yawn.
All around, thousands of birds beat their wings above us. Black specks of sooty shearwaters (tıtı, or muttonbird), pipits, jet-black feathered Snares Island tomtits, and Snares cape petrels diving into the waves.
The lucky sighting of a shy Snares fernbird causes a stir among the serious birders. They are rare – with only an estimated 1500 pairs – and at risk. Camouflaged against the rock, they scuttle away from lenses and binoculars, moving more like a rodent than a bird.
But again, the true punk rock stars of the island are the Snares crested penguin, with their spiky, yellow eyebrow stripes. With their broad white chests, and thick necks, they posture on the rocks like dinner-suited nightclub bouncers, although they are less aggressive than their other crested penguin cousins.
The island is home to about 150 colonies, most up to a 1km into the forest. But food is in the ocean, and while these pingus are no slouches, foraging as far away as Tasmania, they like an easy start to their commute.
That involves the Penguin Slide: a sloping expanse of granite stretching from the forest straight into the ocean. Etched with scratches from scrabbling claws, this is the penguin superhighway, teeming with birds either coming or going for a feed.
Small groups huddle around the waterline, tumbling into each other and gripping the rocks with their strong, black claws and loudly braying at their clumsier pals.
Once their numbers reach a critical mass, one brave bird will make a leap and the others will follow, arrowing into the water. It’s a penguin parade you could watch for hours.
Untamed and forgotten by humans, these islands are nature at its most uncompromising and yet fragile. It makes a visit an emotional experience because life and vivacity clings to and flourishes in every crevice and cubby: far from the destructive reaches of humankind.