Tue 6 Feb 2017: the Long Walk

Sometime last night (or early this morning) we arrived at Campbell Island. We're anchored in Perseverance Harbour.

That's enough facts.

The sea in this harbour is so calm that we can have a shower -- without holding on.  In theory. With an early start (6:45am) and a long walk planned, we leave showers till the evening. So it's breakfast, pick up packed lunch, zodiac to shore.

It's a choppy, windy, cold ride in the zodiac.

On shore we are welcomed -- by a group of sealions. Half a dozen swimming, following the boat in. One sealion comes up onto the dock to challenge us. According to Phil -- the DoC man who worked here for seven weeks -- those sealions are always there.

Life-vests off, final shuffling of gear, we're off. On the "long walk", eight and a half km. Across the island, then back a different way.

We start up a wet, muddy track. This is a bit tough, I think. And from there it gets tougher.

The "track" is crowded in with grass and shrubs. There are alternate tracks though most are even less obvious. Tussock grass makes for lumps, easy to trip over, hard to walk over. We go up and then down.

This first stage is simple, just up, across and down to the next harbour inlet. There are sealions in and around the inlet. One does a couple of porpoise jumps out of the water. Most are just swimming or sitting. We walk around a couple sleeping in the grass.

We follow the shoreline to a creek crossing. It's a metre step down and a metre wide. I make the mistake of stepping down too close to the near edge -- it's deep, some water gets in my wellies. Just a bit, luckily. I think Deb gets a bit more.

We are facing a small sealion colony. Fifty or so of them, in family groups. We walk just a few metres inland of the colony.

Almost past but we have to move towards the water to get across a creek. One group starts staring at us, some make threatening noises at us. The noisy ones mostly look like males. I'm not worried -- until the biggest male -- the big daddy of the group -- starts to look threatening... But we keep moving and there is no real trouble.

We walk up a long and gentle slope. Sounds easy? It's slippery, lumpy, wet. There are bits of boardwalk. The boardwalk is sometimes overgrown, slippery, wet. We are glad to take a break -- morning smoko -- near the top of the hill.

The top of the hill faces a steeper drop, to the ocean. We are exposed to the wind... to the very strong wind. People are leaning into it. We have to watch how we stand or walk, or be blown off course. It's a steep drop ahead and behind but it's all grassy tussocks. Fall over and you'll just get wet and maybe bruised.

There are a few albatrosses sitting in the grass, generally looking at us but otherwise ignoring us.

aside: Deb says to mention that she has a cold :-(  One passenger boarded in NZ with a cold. Another person caught it. Now Deb has it.

So... We turn left and follow the coast. We're at the top of the slope, following the top of a ridge. With the wind howling in from the sea. (Well, blowing very strongly. There is no sound of howling.) More albatrosses.

Down the ridge and we are walking at the edge of cliffs leading down to the sea. Wow! look at the view of the sea, people say. Er no thanks, I think, I'd rather keep clear of the drop. Away from the edge the coastal view is still impressive.

We're soon clear of the cliffs, walking down a slope towards... well, towards another set of cliffs. But lower. We have great views of cliffs and ocean and a steep rocky island off the coast.

There's a final downhill... and it is rough. Overgrown track, mud holes, sudden drops... We reach a creek and walk down the rocky bed, with a bit of water, a bit of mud, some sudden drops -- but we can see where we are stepping. What a relief!

And we reach a beach. No sand, just "pebbles". Pebbles up to the size of two fists. Plus rocks. Such an open and pleasant spot :-) We stop here for lunch.

Deb and I pick a spot which is sheltered from the wind. (Sort of. There's no real shelter from the wind.) Our spot just happens to be away from everyone else.

After lunch -- there's a rockhopper penguin watching us leave. He stands close enough to be photographed by everyone. He watches as we scramble up a small cliff and into thick scrub.

The track up from the beach starts as a 45 degree climb. Twisting and turning through scrub. Not too bad really.

[Imagine a lot of tough walking. This second half goes up another hill and down again. The mud is thicker and more common. The climb is as high but not too sudden. When the faster walkers get a few hundred metres ahead -- they are often out of sight. Take "hard work" as standard. I'll just hit the highlights.]

The weather is cool -- perhaps ten degrees. It's fine with very occasional sprinkles of rain. The sun sometimes shines. A nice day for a walk...

A hut. Somewhere. Bunks, odds and ends for sleeping rough. A visitors' book. An aggressive sealion outside. Samuel faces the sealion, we all keep behind Samuel. The sealion gets close enough for Sam to tap the sealion on the flipper with his walking stick, the sealion doesn't seem to notice it. When we leave the hut, Sam is the last to leave.

Vaughn slips and falls down a hole. Is jammed bottom down with his head and feet up. No way he could get himself out. I grab his arm, first to stop him falling further. I raise him a bit, Harrison joins the lifting team, Vaughn manages to get himself out.

We're on a long, level hillside. Lots of albatrosses nesting in the grass. They don't move as we pass by. Several are nesting on our track, we move off the track to give them a few metres clearance.

We're off the track to avoid one albatross. It's standing up as we pass. There's a fluffy white bundle under it... It's an albatross chick ! Very young, very cute.

Albatrosses in the grass. Albatrosses flying -- soaring -- overhead. Brilliant !

Penguins are my favourite bird. Any penguin is automatically cute and interesting. Albatrosses are my next favourite. Not the brown ones. Not the sooty ones. Not the whatever others there are... Just the Southern Royal Albatross. They are everything I ever imagined an albatross would be: large, white, soaring magnificently. Now add to that: calm, and with very cute fluffy white chicks :-)

End of the walk. We are near the loneliest tree in the world. According to Guiness. It's a pine, planted many years ago. Tip pruned once a year for a Christmas tree. And it's the only tree on this island -- everything else is a shrub.

Zodiac back to the ship.

Tired. But -- Deb and I agree -- not as tired as after some rogaines. And -- like a rogaine -- as soon as the walk is over we start thinking, that was good, I wonder when the next one will be...

But "the next one" is up Mt Honey. Which is said to be as tough as today's walk, about as far and taking just as long. No, says Deb, a sightseeing tour in a zodiac sounds good. An hour later Deb says, I'd like to walk to the albatross nesting area. (That's 8km but an easier walk.) If we waited till tomorrow -- we could end up on the Mt Honey walk. Luckily, we had to put our names down tonight. And we didn't.

It was a tough walk but worth the effort. Deb says the scenery was magnificent. I say the albatrosses made it worth the walk. So we agree: it was a great day :-)