Our Travel Stories

Author: Mayuresh

We visited Campbell Island today in sub-Antartic region of New Zealand. As we left Auckland island, our expedition leader announced that weather on the Campbell Island was not optimal for walk because of the 35-40 mile wind and gust of 49 miles. Still we decided to hike on boardwalk for 4 miles in a short time of 3 hours. Why?Because we wanted to watch nesting Albatrosses along the boardwalk.

We did get to see many of these albatrosses. We saw 2-4 of them that were about 5-8 ft away. We saw them clearly, we saw them nesting and protecting their eggs/chicks, and we saw that they didn’t want to be disturbed as well.

On the way back, we were joined by Pipit bird. This guy walked (2-3 ft ahead on the boardwalk) as our lead for almost a mile.

We really enjoyed the walk through the native tussock grass and beautiful wild flowers. This was the first island that New Zealand made “pest free” (removing all the reindeer, rats, mice and cats) and now the marine life is flourishing on this island.

We returned back to the ship by 1:15pm for late lunch.

After lunch, we visited the live animal samples collected by the science team. We saw cool tiny shell fish and shrimp.

And as the low pressure system and storm heading our way, we left Campbell Island and started heading to Macquarie Island. The swells are big today about 12 ft high (rogue waves were almost 15 ft high) and we have been told to be careful as we walk on the ship.