52° 32′ 24″S 169° 8′ 42″E
It’s New Year’s Eve, and today I have a choice to make. Do I take the hike Alex describes as ‘terrible, difficult, you will hate yourself and question why you came, but it’s worth it’? Do I spend the day with Southern Royal Albatross on their nests and gamming grounds? The problem with being in areas as wild as Campbell Island is that sensible Edin vanishes entirely, and adventure Edin takes over. So while I could take some wonderful photos of my favourite birds today, I’m going to hike to Northwest Bay and back. In the rain. Let’s go!
Sleek and friendly sealions meet us at the landing. Campbell Island has a long history of human involvement, from whaling in the early days, to a 40-year stint as a subantarctic sheep farm, coast-watching during wartime, and later meteorological work. We start our hike by Beeman Base, which served as the centre of operations when rats were completely eradicated from the island in 2001. As well as sealions, there is a solitary Campbell Island Flightless Teal to meet us. These little birds were thought extinct for over 80 years, until a population was found on rugged Dent Island, off the northwest coast of Campbell. After years of captive breeding to bolster the population numbers, they were re-released on to rat-free Campbell ten years ago. They’ve done very well since. As with Enderby, we’re barely out of the zodiacs and we’ve spotted our first endemic – these islands are truly amazing.
Southern Black-backed Gulls flock overhead as we cross the little headland into Tucker cove. The shore is slick with green and red seaweed on wet rocks. It’s quiet. Like the island is holding its breath. There’s the gentle sound of water on rocks, hushing tussock, and the wide sound of the far-off sea. Perseverance Harbour is still. Winding through wet tussock and spiky Dracophyllum scrub, we make our way around Tucker cove and head for the hills.
Surprise Elephant seal! They’re never really a surprise though, you can smell them long before you see them. After seeing them lounging on the pebbly shores of Macquarie Island, it’s odd to see them tucked in amongst yellow Bulbinella spears. Better a Elephant seal than a sealion, though. Elephant seals probably won’t beat anyone in a running race. 
We’re barely into it, and this hike is shaping up to be my favourite part of the trip. I want to see as much of the island as possible. The way the plants around us change as we leave the shoreline, dip down into gullies and then up on to wide flats. How distant peaks appear and vanish in the mist. Campbell Island is alpine at sea-level, with no trees save for the solitary Sitka spruce that was reportedly planted in 1907 by Lord Ranfurly, the then Governor General of New Zealand. At the end of our hike today, we will see the ‘loneliest tree in the world’ in Camp Cove. For now, though, we are knee-deep in golden tussock, sinking into sodden peat, and admiring tiny orchids. With rain on an average of 325 days each year, the flora of Campbell flourishes.
Can you see where we started? I can’t. We’re walking up and up and into the mist. Everything is soft and quiet. Apart from my ragged breathing and every sloshing step. An old landslip is making our way up the slope easier, if a bit loose in places. We take a break to refuel, breathe, and appreciate what a nice view we’d have if it wasn’t so misty. I get distracted by a Pipit while the group recollects itself, and have to wipe the rain off my lens to get any photographs. How long will these waterproof camera coverings be useful for? The pipits seem to be bigger and yellower than their Auckland-island cousins, more puffed in this colder climate.
It’s not every day that you stumble across an albatross. But suddenly, there’s a big white bird in front of me, with a calm and curious look in its eyes. There’s more than one, and I begin to pick out more and more scattered up the slope. Glowing in the low cloud, like clouds themselves who have landed in the tussock. There are nesting Southern Royal Albatross everywhere, preening or napping peacefully in the mist. So different from the wide and windy ocean.
I can hear the sea, but I can’t see it. We’re just following a ridge line into nothingness. The wind races up the seaward side to buffet us, tugging at the long tussock. To either side of our path, the land drops away steeply into cloud.
As we reach the coast the cloud lifts, blown back up towards the peaks. White cliffs drop into a surging sea, blue tossed spray against kelp and black rocks. Edging the cliff is a garden, lush and green, sprouts of purple Anisotome leaning with the breeze. The air is cold, but it brings with it a warm, honeyed scent. The sweet smell of megaherbs, heavy against the salt tang of the ocean.
Taking the cliff-edge path, the tussock rises around us, whispering in the gusts. There are more birds to stumble across – this time they’re concealed Giant petrel chicks, well fluffed, grey, and grumpy in the rain. I crouch down and the wind vanishes, in the shelter of tussock the air is pleasantly warm. Warm by subantarctic standards anyway. It’s not a bad place to have a nest – and these ones definitely have the best view.
I put my cameras away after a muddy descent down a stream, and the just as muddy ascent up the other side of the bay. Waterproof covers can only do so much, and I often need both my hands to clamber around vegetation. Our lunch is a soggy stop in Northwest bay, while inquisitive sealions nibble at our bags and roar at us. We wind through rough ferns to an old hut, which is well stocked with empty bottles of spirits. And then it’s back up, up into the clouds once more.
We’re back in the realm of the albatross. They soar overhead and the wind carries their wild cries to us even when the mist obscures them. There’s still a long way to go to get back, but we take a few minutes to crouch in the short Dracophyllum and watch a few birds practice their mating displays. Calling, bill-clacking, wing-stretches. They land with thumps, ungainly as they make the transition from air to ground. Taking off looks difficult, heavy steps on uneven ground, with wide wings skimming the bushes. We leave them to it. We’ve got some more climbing to do before we start our descent back down into Perseverance Harbour.
The weather gets wetter, and wetter. We stop for biscuits in a massive hollowed boulder cave, and then dodge deep mud holes on our way downhill. My cameras are back in the bag, along with the soaked gloves that I gave up on a few hours ago. It’s not cold enough to need them, at least.
We haven’t seen a single Snipe. We were meant to be tripping over them, but they’re clearly more sensible than we are and are tucked up in their snipe-holes out of the rain. But as we take our final steps out of the Dracophyllum and into Camp cove, there’s movement in the bushes. We’re at the front of the group for just this reason – all the more chance of spotting snipe before they vanish. And it is. A Campbell Island Snipe that is almost as bedraggled as we are! They’re another bird that has made an amazing comeback since the rat eradication – and they were only discovered in 1997 on Jacquemart Island, off the south coast. We’re elated, cameras out in the pouring rain, watching this tiny bird disappear into the bushes. I’m wet through and getting colder as we wait for the zodiacs to pick us up, but it’s the furthest thing from my mind. Campbell Island, with its wilderness and wildlife, is a dream come true.
After a warm shower and some food, I’m back out on deck as the sky clears. Clouds tinge pink as the sun drops, and with it, the temperature. Tonight we’ll spend in the calm clear waters of Perseverance Harbour, celebrating the start of a brand new year in one of the wildest places on earth. What could be better?
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