Camp­bell Island – 19th Febru­ary 2020

Mi
19 Feb
2020

It was a bit fog­gy today, but other than that, Camp­bell Island was good to us. No wind or any­thing else that would have made our lives dif­fi­cult. So we could easi­ly go ashore, full ahead 🙂 the­re is quite den­se vege­ta­ti­on also here on Camp­bell Island near the shore and when the­re is no wind, such as today near the landing site, a wea­the­red con­cre­te plat­form that belongs to the for­mer wea­ther sta­ti­on, then the­re are a lot of fly­ing beasts that bite and bother you. But as soon as you start wal­king a bit hig­her up then you lea­ve the biting beast area behind (I am sure experts would use a dif­fe­rent ter­mi­no­lo­gy but I am not an insec­to­lo­gist).

The way takes us through the area of the wea­ther sta­ti­on that was aban­do­ned in 1995 and soon the low but den­se coas­tal forest is get­ting more and more open. A board­walk is win­ding up and bet­ween some hills across to the other side of the island.

Camp­bell Island is, among­st others, famous for its mega­herbs – beau­tiful, lar­ge flowers that may reach this remar­kab­le size in order to be able to gather more light to crea­te a warm micro­cli­ma­te within the flower, some­thing that keeps the insects hap­py that the flowers rely on for pol­len­ati­on. And of cour­se for birds. The­re are many inte­res­t­ing spe­ci­es. Some of us were lucky enough to see the famous sni­pe, which was only dis­co­ver­ed in 1997 on neigh­bou­ring Jac­quemart Island. In 2001, when Camp­bell Island its­elf was rat-free again, the sni­pe could re-occu­py the main island again.

Kli­cken Sie auf die Bil­der, um eine ver­grö­ßer­te Dar­stel­lung des Bil­des zu erhal­ten.

For many, the main attrac­tion will have been the maje­s­tic roy­al alba­tros­ses that breed high up on the win­dy slo­pes and hills.

The­re was not much to be seen of the view on the west side of the island. But that didn’t mat­ter too much. The­re was so much beau­ty other than that.

Now we have got a cou­ple of days at sea ahead of us. We have set cour­se for the Bal­le­ny Islands.