The rest of Wednesday was filled with reading, walking on deck (hazardous!), talking to people and lots of snoozing to overcome mild feelings of seasickness. The next morning we woke up strangely refreshed. The ship was lying blissfully still, anchored in a quiet harbour by Enderby Island, which is the smallest of the three islands comprising the Auckland Islands. Click here for a useful map, which also shows the sites of the many shipwrecks. The Invercauld, which I mentioned in my blog entry for 11 January 2009 was wrecked on the north-west corner of the main island. We landed at the site of a research station, where they study the Hooker sea lions and the penguins and other wildlife.
We crossed the island from our landing place. This part is covered by a boardwalk, which is pleasant, because it can get extremely muddy. At the top, once we came out of the shelter of the shrubs and trees, it blew a stiff wind. It wasn't easy to keep one's balance on the board walk, which was quite narrow. But it was ideal weather for albatrosses, who circled overhead.
In many ways the Auckland Islands resemble Stewart Island, which lies just off the south coast of the South Island of New Zealand, but because they are more southerly, the vegetation is different and more stunted and windswept. Stewart Island contains typical New Zealand bush vegetation, but the Auckland Islands are famous for their megaherbs.
The islands are also famous for the furious weather and winds, which blast against the rocky coast, hence the many shipwrecks. In Enderby there is a memorial to fifteen people who died when the ship the Derry Castle went down in March 1887. The regular occurrence of shipwrecks prompted the New Zealand government to build small provisioned huts as shelter. There was one still on the island. It's the size of a small tent.
During our brisk and exciting tramp around the perimeter of Enderby, which took a large part of the day, we saw lots of sea lions lying about — in fact we occasionally had to detour when a sea lion, hidden by the high tussock grass, suddenly popped up her head right in front of us. Yellow eyed penguins hopped out of the sea and scrambled over the rocks. And we saw a lot of shags, skua and a number of albatrosses. In many places it is difficult if not impossible to get across the islands, because the shrubs and stunted trees form such dense undergrowth.This is what makes the islands so appealing to me: the strange vegetation.
We also saw an endemic gentian in white, pink and purple. The soil is very peaty, spongy and bouncy. The grass and bush had lots of different colours, but the megaherbs had more or less finished blooming and were reduced to brown stalks and seed heads. The hardest part of this five hour walk was the high tussock. There’s no proper path and we had to find the best way through. The tussock grass occasionally snared the tip of my boots and once I fell flat on my face.
The tussock gave us good shelter for our lunch. That's my cabin mate Julia.
The trip back to the mothership was an adventure in itself. By then the wind had risen again and the sea was getting very choppy. The tide was also coming in, making big waves on the beach. Those sitting at the back of the boat got soaked several times by high waves, while the rest of us were trying to clamber into the Zodiac. The boatsman couldn’t get the Zodiac away from the beach. When he finally managed to push it out a bit and managed to struggle on board, the tide had thrown the Zodiac back on the beach. So we all had to get out again, jump into the surf, so that the Zodiac could be moved further along the beach to a calmer spot. This time we were successful and all got on board safely. But the trip back was no picnic either. The waves were high and this time those in front got splashed. Lucky me sat in the middle and missed most of the soakings. Trying to jump out of the Zodiac onto the gangplank stairs, with the waves constantly either lifting the Zodiac above the platform or pushing it underneath was also a bit of an effort and not for the fainthearted. At the end of the day my tramping boots were totally soaked from submersions and my clothes and pack were very wet, but — thank goodness — waterproof (I have a good lining bag for my backpack) and my camera was safe and dry. Some warm clothes quickly warmed us up, helped by a cup of soup in the lounge/bar. After a wonderful exciting although strenuous day the evening meal tasted grand.
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