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Home* Triplogs with photo galleriesAntarctic blog → Auck­land Island – 18 Febru­ary 2020

Auck­land Island – 18 Febru­ary 2020

We rea­ched the Auck­land Islands after a day at sea. Pret­ty rough pas­sa­ge, given it was the first day on the ship for most of us. But now we had made it so far!

»So far« was Enderby Island, the nor­t­hern­most one of the Auck­land islands. The idea was to make a landing on Enderby, but that was not to hap­pen. Far too much swell and surf on the beach.

Any­way – we had other opti­ons, so we went Zodiac-crui­sing the various bays and shore­li­nes of Port Ross. A land­scape that remin­ded me great­ly of the fjords and islands in Tier­ra del Fue­go, in the sou­thern­most part of Chi­le. Very simi­lar vege­ta­ti­on, with a den­se cold-tem­pe­ra­te-cli­ma­te rain­fo­rest near the shore, and exo­tic birds cal­ling from within the forest. A bird­wat­chers’ para­di­se, and we got to see quite a lot, inclu­ding the ende­mic Auck­land shag, the New Zea­land pipit, the chick of a light-man­t­led soo­ty alba­tross, the odd sea lion … we also found the basalt colum­ns made famous by Mr. M’Cormick, the natu­ra­list on board with Cap­tain James Clark Ross in 1840:

Mr. M’Cormick, who remarks that the for­ma­ti­on of the­se (refer­ring to the Auck­land Islands), as well as Camp­bell Islands, is vol­ca­nic, and con­sti­tu­ted chief­ly of basalt and green­stone, espe­ci­al­ly calls atten­ti­on to »Deas’ Head,« a pro­mon­to­ry of Auck­land Island, as being of gre­at geo­lo­gi­cal inte­rest, exhi­bi­ting fine colum­ns, three hundred feet high, which are high­ly magne­tic.

James Clark Ross (1847):
A Voya­ge of Dis­co­very and Rese­arch in the Sou­thern and Ant­ar­c­tic Regi­ons,
During the Years 1839-43

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

Later we went out again in Car­n­ley Har­bour, fur­ther south on the main island of the Auck­lands. An unbe­lie­va­ble place! Sce­n­ery, wild­life … stun­ning!

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last modification: 2020-02-21 · copyright: Rolf Stange
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