The last leg

Before we left McMurdo Sound about a dozen of the passengers jumped into the ice cold water for a Polar Plunge. Not me. Most of them were young(ish) except one very admirable woman in her fifties. She did first have to ask the ship's doctor if it was OK for her to take the plunge.

On our way out of the Ross Sea we found ourselves completely surrounded by sea ice, which was an eerie view in the misty morning. Then it started to snow. The temperature rose to a balmy minus 9 degrees. The ice in the sea went from 'pancake ice' to bergy bits, to quite large pancakes and large ice floes, with occasionally a small group of penguins or seals on a piece of ice.


On Sunday 1 March we finally left the Ross Sea after our visit to the Borchgrevink hut at Cape Adare (see previous post). We now faced six whole days at sea before we reached Campbell Island. Although we went towards the Balleny Islands, there was too much mist and sea ice to get in for a landing or even a view of the Islands. The tour leader asked the captain whether he thought we could go in, and the captain said "NYET!"

So, on we went, through rough seas, and calm, with amazing rosy sunrises and sunsets, pods of whales, which was very very cool, and lots of birds: petrels, skua, fulmars, shearwaters, and albatross. The sea was never the same: if it was calm, birds would perch of the gently bobbing waves; if it was rough, the seas would splash over the bridge and withdraw with spectacular foaming;
or suddenly we would be surrounded again by heavy ice, or icebergs. When not watching waves or birds, we were entertained with really good documentaries or lectures about polar exploration or antarctic wildlife. I also delved into the library on board and read Admiral Byrd's autobiography about his wintering adventure, called Alone. An amazing book and a very frank telling of the loneliness and eventual near madness that Byrd battled during the dark winter months of 1934 on the ice by himself. He was living in a small and comfortable hut, but nevertheless had to fight against immense cold nights/days of sometimes minus 70 degrees. I love the cover of the book (the book I read had none). Byrd looks a bit like a caveman with a cudgel in his hand.

Finally, in the early evening of Friday 6 March we arrived at Campbell Island.
In the afternoon we had a lecture on recognising albatross, but this only confused me. After 4 or 5 I gave up and felt my head spin. However, I had no problems seeing that the dozen or so albatrosses that flew around the ship were royals, because they are so huge and we have a royal albatross colony near Dunedin, which I have visited often. Campbell Island has a huge colony of royal albatross and in the high season there may be thousands there. Unfortunately we were there in the off season and there were only a hundred or so birds. But we were able to get really up close and personal.


At the Dunedin colony you can only watch from behind the windows of the observation building, but here we found several nesting quite close to the boardwalk. I spent at least twenty minutes just sitting in the tussock, watching a pair of albatross change guards of their nest. One had been looking after the nest with a chick, the other came back from her foraging trip. She wobbled to the nest — albatross are graceful in the air, but very clumsy when they try to walk — and then the two birds engaged in the typical albatross greeting and loving ceremony, of preening each other, clicking their beaks together etc. Finally the one who had been sitting on the nest (for some reason I decided that was the father) stepped away and let the other take over. He moved away, was about to depart, but then came back for another quick kiss, walked in the other direction and finally flew away, while the mother happily settled down to sit on the nest and guard the nest. Strangely enough, I did not see her feeding the chick, which is what one would expect after a trip away.

The New Zealand Department of Conservation has held a huge and very successful pest eradication program (look at this Campbell Island website for information). The timber from the crates of poison have been used to complete the boardwalk, so that tourists can now walk right to the top and have enjoy the splendid views.




After our visit to Campbell Island it was another two days motoring to get us to Bluff and from there by bus to Invercargill, where most of us immediately rushed to do two things: first have a decent cup of espresso to compensate for the month of instant coffee and secondly to go shopping after a month's deprivation. Invercargill is a remarkably great place for shopping. Although it is, in the eyes of many New Zealanders, a bit of a backwater and a small town, it has a hinterland of rich farmers. By the way, the official Invercargill website is not to be missed. Look here and enjoy the welcoming words from the mayor Tim Shadbolt, one of New Zealand's most colourful personalities. In the New Zealand movie The World's Fastest Indian (about a motorbike speed record, not about American indigenous people) Shadbolt played himself as mayor of Invercargill.

After our shopping spree, we had a pleasant drive back to Dunedin. For once I was the person living closest to the point of departure, while everyone else had to travel across the world to get to Invercargill and back home. It has been really nice, writing this story about the trip. It helped to keep it all alive. I don't think I would ever want to spend so many days in a fairly small boat travelling that far to have another look at Antarctica. But I wouldn't mind seeing the sub-antarctic islands again. They were truly amazing and it would be exciting to see them earlier in the season when the megaherbs are in bloom and the wildlife is even more abundant.

Although my Antarctica story is finished, I hope you keep reading my blog. More soon.