tiabunna's photos with the keyword: Macquarie Island 1968

When Ipernity member Herb Riddle recently posted a photo of a fog bow, it seemed I was one of the very few who had previously seen one. Herb asked if I had a photo from my sighting and this is it, taken on Kodachrome slide film at Macquarie Island (a very foggy place) in 1968. Maybe view large. Explored.

From an old slide. Midwinter is the year's major event in the Antarctic regions: there are suitable celebrations and, in most years at the Australian stations, a performance of a rather bawdy rhyming version of Cinderella. Here Cinderella tries on the 'magic slipper' while one of the ugly sisters watches in horror, saying "...Strike me pink the slipper fits Now wouldn't that give you the s###s"

From an old slide. This shows most of the isthmus of Macquarie Island, between North Head (from which it is taken) and the main plateau to the south, also most of the ANARE station.

From an old slide. These conditions were known as a "Freeze-up", not least because the pipes bringing our water supply from the plateau sometimes did just that. Fortunately this usually lasted only a few days. The row of nissen huts were primarily for storage, the small yellow building with the cross was known as "Chippy's Church" and was the station brewery. In the right foreground is the kitchen/mess, while the main accommodation block is in the foreground, hidden below the brow of the hill.

From an old slide. The sealers and such have long since gone, thankfully. In 1968 a new industry arrived when Lindblad Expeditions began the first tourist trips to East Antarctica and Macquarie Island. This is part of that first ever tourist group to visit the island, returning to their ship the Magga Dan with some of the "locals" assisting. Several tourist ships now visit yearly. This group had no zodiacs for shore landings, as is now usual, so we backed the station tractor and trailer into the water as an improvised jetty to help get them to their ships' boat. Best viewed large on black.

From an old slide. Macquarie Island has had many shipwrecks over the years. Shortly after the island was first discovered in 1810, the Sydney Gazette carried the report of the discovery and "... several pieces of wreck of a large vessel on this island, apparently very old and high up in the grass ..." . Unfortunately the sealing gangs used any timber as firewood for rendering seal blubber, so any traces of that earlier mystery ship had long disappeared before we visited. How fascinating to have known its age and origin, and what a fertile source for speculation! In subsequent years many ships were wrecked on the island, the most recent prior to our visit being the "Gratitude" which was caught on a lee shore by an easterly gale in late 1898. This section of keel is all that remained in our time - and that, we expected, would be the last shipwreck there. What a surprise when the news bulletins in late 1988 carried reports that our own ship, the "Nella Dan" also dragged her anchor in an easterly gale and, after being stranded on the rocks near the Station, was finally hauled off and scuttled near the island.

From an old slide. Macquarie Island was found by sealers in 1810. They promptly exterminated the resident fur seals for their pelts, then began on the elephant seals for their blubber to extract oil. By the late 1800s, there were too few elephant seals for that to be viable, so they began on the penguins. These rusty boilers were "penguin digesters", used to cook countless thousands of King and Royal penguins for their oil. The trade was halted after the Australian Antarctic Expedition of 1911-13 raised public consciousness of what was being done. The explorer Sir Douglas Mawson began a campaign to have the island declared a sanctuary, though even in 1919 there were efforts (which were opposed) to revive the industry. To quote the photographer Frank Hurley (who had wintered in Antarctica with Mawson and Shackleton) writing in the Sydney Morning Herald of 17 August 1919: "I can only term the destruction there as grim tragedy, the remembrance of which makes me shudder still.... The penguins are mustered like sheep and ...." ... (I shall spare you the details) "....it is one of the most pitiful sights I have ever witnessed..... This wanton butchery takes a toll of some 150,000 birds annually..." These digesters are at a point known as The Nuggets, others are at Lusitania Bay on the east coast. These remains of the "bad old days" were still there in 2005, but they are in areas where tourists are not allowed to land. Maybe appropriately, best viewed on black (press Z).

From an old slide. The sad record is that when Macquarie Island was discovered by sealers in 1810, they promptly began killing the many fur seals for their pelts. One ship alone was recorded to have taken over 35,000. In total, over 200,000 were taken by the early 1820s: by then the fur seal population had been exterminated and nobody even knows what species had been there. When the ANARE station began operation in 1948 a few fur seals were found in isolated areas, but there was no record of a pup being born there until 1954. Numbers gradually increased and, in 1968, we found small numbers around the rocks on North Head. I understand the population has been increasing substantially since the early 1980s. But what species is this? I am no sealologist (if there's such a word), but three species now are living at Macquarie - the most common being the Antarctic fur seal (Arctocephalus gazella) , the next most common the Subantarctic fur seal (A. tropicalis) ; and the New Zealand fur seal (A. forsteri). To make it even more complicated, it seems they all are hybidising! I'll take a guess that this is an Antarctic fur seal and will be happy to be corrected by an expert.

From an old slide. Typical beach scene on the east coast on one of the few "good weather" days. Giant Petrel nearest camera, Skua Gulls and more Giant Petrels beyond, with Dominican Gulls in and over the water. Elephant Seals to the right, and the usual tangle of giant kelp on the beach. Penguins way in the distance.

From an old slide. This group of Rockhopper penguins, with their almost mature chicks, was fairly close to the station. Best viewed on black.

From an old slide. Rockhopper penguins are distributed around the sub-Antarctic. Usually found in small groups on rocky outcrops where they really do hop up and down the rocks. Also featured in the movie "Happy Feet". Best viewed on black.

From an old slide. The Southern Giant Petrels were usually known among Australian antarctic expeditions as "Nellies". This one nesting is in the white colour phase: dark brown/grey is the more common plumage, but they change.

Copied from an old slide. Dating from the early 1950s, the Lusitania Bay hut was a recycled aircraft engine packing crate! But it did provide overnight (if basic) accommodation. When I returned in 2005 for a visit, it was noticeable how the King Penguin colony had expanded to completely surround this hut.

From an old slide. This was taken on the plateau of Macquarie Island, somewhere about 300 metres above sea level. I was impressed by these rocks, looking so much like the sea stacks (see my earlier coastal shots). Years later, geological research showed that Macquarie Island is unique in being the only place in the world where an active mid-ocean ridge is actually rising above the ocean surface and exposing rocks from the earth's mantle. In geological terms the island is very new (8-10 million years) : no wonder I saw "sea stacks" on the plateau! Macquarie Island was added to the World Heritage List in 1997 because of its geological importance and uniqueness.

From an old slide: the move to Flickr has done something strange to the clouds. Penguins at right foreground beach. Best viewed on black.

From an old slide. Scenes such as this are quite uncommon, though typically the east coast is calmer than the west. Usually the Southern Ocean is rough, the wind strong and accompanied by rain and/or fog, which makes the rare good sunrise feel absolutely magical. Slide taken with Minolta SR1 and Rokkor 35mm lens.

From an old slide. At Bauer Bay the biologists had tamed a Weka (Gallirallus australis) to take morsels. Wekas are a flightless bird (also known as a Maori Hen) and were introduced from New Zealand in the late 1800s as a food source for sealing gangs. When the island came under the control of Parks Tasmania some time after our stay, the Wekas were exterminated as part of a programme to remove all feral animal species.

From an old slide. Bauer Bay is on the west coast of Macquarie Island, a few hours' walk from the main station. The scene is typical of the plateau escarpment and the small coastal plain in that area. On the lower left is a small field hut, mainly used by the biologists, and one of the orange route marker poles to indicate the track in poor conditions.