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Friday 25th March
Today was a bit of a sad day because all our friends who are staying at Macquarie Island left the ship, in fact it seemed like everybody left the ship apart from the crew and the artists. We had to stay on board while all the re-supply operations got underway and it was very frustrating looking across the water at the beautiful island and not being able to be there. Anyway, some good things happened. The first was that when I woke up at about 6.15am, Macquarie Island was outside my porthole, steep green hills falling into the ocean, scarred with landslides and gullies. I asked someone about some patches of rock high up on the hillside and they told me they were King Penguin rookeries. What I thought were patches of stones were patches of penguins. The penguins come ashore and waddle up a gully for hundreds of metres to reach their high rise habitat. One theory about this crazy situation is that the rookeries were originally at sea level, but, as Macquarie Island is the only place in the world where the earth's crust is pushing up, and rises about a centimetre a year, they have been slowly elevated over the years. Another good thing that happened was that I saw King Penguins swimming outside my porthole and making lovely chirping noises. Finally, just before sunset, I saw a beautiful rainbow over the sea, and took a photograph of one of the helicopters flying past it, and also a nice one of a bird.
Going to bed exhausted after being lost in the cyber-woods for about two hours when I couldn't find any of my photos, not even in the re-cycle bin, finally found them in a music folder, phew!, with best wishes, Alison
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Saturday 26th March
We left the Aurora at 8.00am by Zodiac, or IRB ( Inflatable Rubber Boat ) to go ashore, hooray! Getting into the Zodiacs is tricky when the weather's bad. You have to climb backwards down a rope ladder, then, when the boat rises on a swell, step down into it. As we zoomed towards the shore lots of King Penguins chased us, some torpedoing right out of the water. I think they chase the krill that the engine stirs up. Two mad cormorants swooped over us at the same time, so it felt pretty crazy. My friend Georgie took a group of us walking on the island today. We went up the hill beside the station first, very steep and freezingly windy, and saw a chunk of wood which is what's left from a radio tower mast that the explorer Mawson erected on his way to the south pole in 1911. Mawson did a stupendously heroic walk which killed some of his companions and got back to base to see his ship sailing out of the harbour. It didn't come back for a year. Years ago rabbits were introduced to the island and it's very sad to see the damage they have done. We walked up hillsides riddled with rabbit holes, and the vegetation chewed down to nothing. A wire-netting enclosure ( out of reach of the rabbits ) held lush, metre high plants, and that's what it used to look like. A big Kill-the-Rabbit program is about to start I think.
It was beautiful sitting high on the hill in the long tussocky grass ( no snakes on Macquarie Island ) looking down at the fur seals lolling about on grey stony beaches fringed with skirts of kelp swirling in milky blue sea. The day was misty so the sea just faded into the sky without a horizon. After lunch we walked the other way and watched the elephant seals, outrageously disgusting animals. They do everything we tell our children not to; fart, belch, dribble, stink, fight. They are huge, slug shaped and can apparently move very fast, so you have to be careful not to get too close to them because they also have very big teeth. They love nothing better than to
lie on each other in big piles of blubber, making noises like an old out-board motor, and occasionally rolling in a "wallow", a huge puddle full of every stinky thing they can put into it. It was funny to see some elegant flipper scratching and rubbing amongst the seas of blubber. We also watched Gentoo Penguins, very neat, keep-to-yourself, types, and King Penguins, who are very bold and curious. If you sit on the beach they come and investigate you, and you can see close up the beautiful combination of black, blue, orange and white that makes up their "look". I'll be seeing more of them tomorrow, so I'll tell you about it then, with best wishes, Alison
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Sunday 27th March
Hi Everybody, I’m so tired I can hardly write but I have had a fantastic day. Started off helping unpack a container of frozen food into palettes the helicopters can lift, so that wasn’t very exciting, but good to be useful. After that we jumped into the Zodiacs and went ashore, met up with Georgie and some others and headed off for a long walk, south along the beach to the The Nuggets, two big rocks a few kilometres away. The first thing we saw was a huge dead elephant seal, with skuas and giant petrels feeding on it, strutting and screaming at each other, and blood all over them. One white giant petrel looked macabre with a completely scarlet neck and head. Next we came to a colony of king penguins, and they are very curious, unafraid birds, if you sit down they come right up to you, and its lovely to be able to see their beautiful plumage close up. The beach was loose and shingled, with rocky headlands to clamber over, and piles of elephant seals to skirt around, with waves crashing in from the other side. We came to Royal Penguin colony ( it’s them that have the rookeries way up high ) and watched them milling together, though the King Penguins kept getting in the way. We had delicious cheese and salami sandwiches ( and an Easter egg, thank you easter bunny for coming so far ) at the nuggets, then heading back into a freezing wind. When we were nearly home Peter, who knows the island, took a few of us on a detour, up a rocky gully so steep that in places there were steel ladders set into the rock, and on to the top of the island. It was misty and very cold, and the ground wet and spongy, but as we walked along the mist lifted and we could see small lakes in the distance. The wind was nearly blowing us over but it was fun walking fast down the hillside. Now I’ve had a shower and I’m ready for bed, goodnight, Alison
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Monday 28th March
Hi everybody, what a frustrating day. I was supposed to go ashore today and stay the night as a special guest of the station leader but the wind came up from the south and we have spent all day chugging up and down the east coast of Macquarie Island. It's too rough to get off by IRB or helicopter, so despite being ready to go at 7.00am I am still here. I did some painting this morning, helped Frances make a furry hat, finished a beanie, played scrabble with Jamie, Frances and Tina (won) and had a sleep, hmmmnn, not a very satisfying day. Tonight I heard an interesting story about sailors from one of the engineers. Apparently the reason sailors always used to wear two gold earrings is so that if they died at sea they had enough money ( in the value of their gold earrings ) to pay to send their bodies home, better go, stacks of nothing to do, yours in grumpiness, Alison
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