The spectacular, isolated and rarely visited sub-Antarctic islands south of New Zealand and Australia are recognised as some of the world’s great “biodiversity hotspots” and enlisted as a World Heritage Sites. Here, almost half of all the world's penguin and albatross species nest and it is a real oasis for anyone interested in wildlife and wildlife. Below you can read about our travellers' visits to MacQuarie Island.
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© Adam Rheborg -
© Adam Rheborg -
© Adam Rheborg
Today we made a landing in Australian territory, on the most remote island imaginable. At the very bottom right corner of the world map you can see a small line sticking out of the depth of the sea - MacQuarie Island. This is home to about 80,000 elephant seals and hundreds of thousands of penguins and other seabirds.
The most special is the royal penguin which nests only on this remote island. In other words, you have to visit Macquarie Island if you want to have seen every penguin species in the world. When you are here you can also take the opportunity to tick off three other species: king penguin, gentoo penguin and rockhopper penguin. And we didn't have to search very long to find the animals. At the ascent of Sandy Bay, it was rather difficult to find a vacancy on the beach to go ashore. The elephant seals were literally in piles and between the piles of blubber, the penguins tried to get up to reach their nesting sites higher up.
We gently wandered between seals and penguins who barely took any notice of the two-legged visitors, and it was difficult to know where to look and photograph. The animals' daily lives took place before our eyes and everything happened at the same time. Few places on the planet can exhibit such a concentration of wildlife, where one can also be in the midst of them.
This was truly a day to remember.
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© Adam Rheborg -
© Adam Rheborg