Day 3: Enderby Island (Auckland Islands)

Author: Shraddha

Today we woke up to calm seas and great balmy weather. Perfect weather for a hike or a long walk. We had signed up for a long walk around the Enderby islands. During the briefing the expedition team mentioned that a 11-14 Km walk will take 5 hours, we were shocked. Especially since they mentioned that the terrain is undulating and not really steep.

I don’t believe we were prepared for the walk we did. For majority of the walk there was no trail.

We literally bushwhacked our way through thick and tall tussock grass, crossed multiple bogs, slipped/got stuck in a few of them, tried to walk quietly past huge sea lions and tried to appear non-threatening to the Hiho penguins (yellow eyed penguins).

We stumbled across many sea lions hidden in the grass that you see only when you get close

Another pair that was well hidden till we startled them

And some right in the open. Here we have four females that were quite boisterous. Our guide Jane is holding them in bay as rest of us keep our distance and cross over

Also came across nesting royal albatross

This was a very shy penguin that we had to walk around to avoid his/her path to the sea

Then there were the stars of Snares, the Hiho or the yellow-eyed penguins. These penguins are endangered as they are very shy and will turn back from feeding if they are startled.

Two Hihos coming back from sea. We kept our distance.

This guy (Hiho, yellow eyed penguin) just froze in place once he saw us. We thought we could just wait for him, but finally walked past him

The walk took 6 hours 45 minutes and we walked a total of 6.4 miles with elevation gain of 519 feet. Some of the miles took longer than an hour each. With our mudboots, the walk was much longer and by end of the walk, I did feel like asking our hiking lead – ‘are we there?’. Mayuresh’s thighs were cramping.

But we got up and close with sea lions, albatrosses, penguins and a variety of small birds.

We got to observe them in their environment and watch their behavior.