New Zealand Sub Antarctic Islands – Antipodes Island

The Antipode Islands were named after the observation that the Island group is almost exactly on the opposite side of the earth from London.  Theoretically digging straight down and through the center of the world would bring us out in London!  Wow!  The root of the word itself is Greek and later Latin and refers to something that is the opposite of the feet or more correctly “the foot.”  I guess the implication for those early explorers was that London was the “head” which is the anatomically most opposite of the feet.

Not only is this group the most remote in distance from New Zealand of the New Zealand Sub Antarctic Islands, but it may be the youngest in that some of the volcanic basalts are only one million years old with the remainder being not much over four or five million years old.  There are several volcanic cones forming the heights of the main island out of the twenty tiny islets sticking out of the sea in the vicinity.  The main island, Antipodes Island, is 97% of the total area of this group.  These islands are part of the New Zealand Nature Preserve and without special permission one cannot step foot on the islands.

I was enthusiastic to come here because it is the home of the Erect-crested Penguin and wanted to get some initial images of these interesting members of the Penguin nation.  It also turned out that we got to see other local and rare birds on the fly: a Reishchek’s parakeet and the larger endemic Red-crowned Antipodes parakeet. Of course albatrosses soared around us in our exploring Zodiacs, but even though the guide called out the very localized and rare Antipodean Albatross, a subspecies of the Wandering Albatross, I could not identify it.  Maybe that was because there were Wandering Albatross, Black-browed and White Capped Albatross in the melee while I was trying to focus on the wonderfully coifed Erect-crested Penguins who were scrambling up vertical cliffs to their very crowded nesting ledges several hundred feet above the sea.  The crests of the Erect-crested Penguin are dramatic and I thought individualistic.  I dearly wanted to go ashore to see some of the other colonies on the flat uplands of the Island, but that could not to be.

Our zodiac traveled from Ringdove Cove to Anchorage Bay along the east coast of Antipode Island.  I imagine guides always travel the east side of the islands because the sea and weather can be exceedingly harsh on the west side.  We did have a bright sunny day but the winds were very brisk and the sea we moved through stayed relatively calm.  Along the coast the island rises nearly straight up out of the sea.  Some of the cliffs looked to be 400 feet of more high and many of them seem occupied by Erect-crested Penguins.  I know from the literature that the top of the island is covered by tussock grasses up to 7 or 8 feet tall and that there may be 5,000 pairs of the Antipode Albatross nesting here, but we could not see these colonies from the zodiacs.

On the way back to the Spirit of Enderby the zodiac driver called our attention to a couple of Shy Albatrosses who were soaring near us.  I had put my cameras away as soon as we started our return to the ship.  The sea was rougher and sea spray became the norm on the way back.  It was easier to sit and enjoy the ride than to try and keep the cameras dry and serviceable.

New Zealand Sub Antarctic Islands: Previous Blog : Part 7 < > Next Blog : Part 9