More Macquarie Island - long day

We are both tired after our first day and consider staying on board but before lunch we reconsider. We will only be here once and there is a sense we might be missing out and so go with the last afternoon group. It was the right decision as it was a completely different experience from yesterday. This was the first time Ponant had been able to offer the opportunity for guests to land on the beach and walk unsupervised amongst the wildlife. This was possible because we are here for 2 days and the weather is spectacular. It was such a wonderful experience we did not want to go back to the ship.

Bob went back to the King penguin rookery, I stayed on the beach. There were a large number of King penguins, elephant seals and giant petrals. I was able to spend time just watching the interaction between birds and animals. One petral was picking at the skin of an elephant seal, the seal wasn't terribly impressed, but the bird persisted. Again it was noisy and smelly but such a privilege to be there.

On the other side I watched Royal penguins going out to sea and returning. One of the King penguins decided to follow me it became challenging to keep my distance from the bird whilst not stepping on or getting too close to a seal, it was very funny. A giant petral flew really close totally ignoring me. I was surprised just how quickly 2 hours passed and it was time to to go back to the ship.

This was not the last excursion of the day. The cruise director was ensuring we made good use of the time we had. We had from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. ship's time not Australian time. As the sun didn't go down until after 10:00 p.m. we could have one more zodiac ride to Lusitania Bay. We passed one of the world's largest penguin rookeries, 1+mill penguins. It is hard to image just how many penguins there are, an amazing sight and really noisy. Most of the penguins were king penguins and there were elephant seals. The fluffy brown birds are chicks.

New Year's Eve, a gala dinner, a show and for those with more stamina than me dancing until midnight. Some revelers stayed up until 2:00 a.m. it was a particularly fine meal with excellent French wine. On our menu it said 'surf and turf' would be served which we found amusing.The dish was a piece of eye fillet steak and a substantial piece of lobster.

The sea is getting rougher as the storm approaches as we leave.Leggi altro