Birds and basalt columns

Day 27. Thursday 6 February – Zodiac trip of Campbell Island

Waitangi Day in New Zealand

Noon position: Latitude 52^o33.072’South; Longitude 169^o09.617’East

Air temperature: 10.8^oC; Water temperature: 9.8^oC

Heavy rain and fog prevented a climb of Mt. Honey today. Instead after breakfast we gathered in the lecture room to consider options for morning activity. These included a further trip to Col Lyall for those who did the long walk yesterday; a muddy walk to the old Coastwatchers’ huts; Zodiac cruise in the outer harbour and tours of the galley and engine room. We opted for the latter activities.

The party which visited the remains of the Coastwatchers’ hut and a red-painted meteorological hut found a very muddy track through Dracophyllum scrub and Bracken. The met hut was in good repair and had furniture along with beer signs on the walls. An unusual stove or boiler was marked ‘UNIQUE’. An aggressive male Sea Lion was carefully avoided on the way back to the ship.

By late morning the sun endeavoured to brighten the day. The Zodiacs trip along the foreshore was very interesting, with misty Scottish/Irish hilltops rising above us.

We were delighted to see a lone Rockhopper Penguin hiding in a little cave in the cliffs while he/she was moulting. We also saw three Yellow-eyed Penguins swimming,

 Light-Mantled Sooty Albatross chicks all alone on nests.

and a family of cormorants.

I was fascinated by the patterns of string kelp in the water.

Drew was especially interested to see where old lava had flowed over sedimentary rock and volcanic basalt columns, some vertical and some curved. They were coloured yellow, white, black and brown. A dyke was examined with caves at the base.

 Herbfields above the cliffs