A huge gathering of penguins along that beach; probably King penguins
Australian Research Base at Buckles Bay, Macquarie Island
Beautiful inquisitive creatures
Hello, room for me in there?! So cute.
These are Southern Giant Petrels - brown morph. Huge birds
Southern Giant Petrel - white morph
After 5 rough nights and days at sea, we sailed into relative calm on the lee side of Macquarie Island, affectionately known as Macca. Ah green! so soothing after the almost black and white chiaroscuro scenery of Antarctica, as absolutely stunning as that was.
Macquarie Island is the only island in the world composed entirely of oceanic crust and rocks from the mantle, deep below the earth's surface. A world heritage site with many other special designations inc UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. Macquarie Island is unique in its formation. About 600,000 years ago a rift in the earth’s crust closed and in so doing extruded molten rock from the earth's mantle up to the surface. Like toothpaste out of a tube only not white or blue etc!! It is the only known place on earth where this has occurred - but we saw the exact opposite last year in Iceland where the tectonic plates are moving apart with magma oozing out (must be a lot of pressure down below!). Unlike Macquarie Island, the other Subantarctic islands developed as underwater volcanoes. Whilst not of volcanic origin, Macca has many faults and experiences earthquakes >7 on the Richter scale every decade. What an unpredictable world we live in!
Parts of the island are very boggy with peat beds up to 6m deep formed over the last 6000 odd years. Whatever its geological history, it’s a special place overflowing with wonderful things, but subject to pretty wild weather. It rains almost everyday of the year - we got a sprinkling with a wee bit of snow mixed in at times - seemed weird. And it is very windy (as you might hear in a couple of my videos).
Unfortunately we were not allowed to visit the Australian Research Base there because of the risk of spreading the ?? ..... aren't we all heartily sick of THAT word? We were pretty disappointed at not being able to visit the station but one of the rangers trekked out from the station overnight and met us the next morning at Sandy Beach so we could wander among the wildlife - callooh callay!
In the meantime we cruised up and down the east coast, because the west coast is simply too rugged and the seas too dangerous, and then after lunch we piled into zodiacs to get a closer look.
What an afternoon!! As soon as we dropped anchor we were welcomed by a flotilla of gorgeous King penguins, 100s of them. They are so curious they followed each zodiac, porpoising through the water all around us. Many followed in the wake of our zodiac obviously enjoying the turbulence created by the outboard.
I got some fantastic videos with our GoPro - fantastic for a novice that is (some are available on YouTube if you want to view them through that App - just go to YouTube.com and search for Heather Wheat, there's a few heather wheats there but you'll figure it out I'm sure). I almost went head over a turkey leaning over the side of the zodiac holding the GoPro underwater to capture the ‘flight’ of these sleek and beautiful creatures - I didn't have a long handle on the GoPro unfortunately, so I was wet up to my elbows almost. A couple of penguins tried to leap into the zodiac and certainly my GoPro was the source of some curiosity. It was an absolutely amazingly wonderful experience!
We cruised near a great flock of Giant Skuas and other birds feeding on the scraps left by an Orca (or group of) who surfaced many times as they turned and dived for food. A little too close for me but totally thrilling and safe as it turned out - while the krill/food lasted!
The beach and hillsides were peppered with penguins and Elephant seals - we were to walk amongst them the next day. Yippee!!
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