On the final day of 2010 we found ourselves working in Norton Stream which has the distinction of reaching the sea at the only significant stretch of sandy beach on Campbell Island (cleverly known as Sandy Bay). According to some of the expedition members who have extensive experience of the island, in this bay one would once encounter over 100 sea lions in a relatively small area and have to run a gauntlet of mock charges to get along the beach. However, it would now appear not so many...
THE JOURNEY
Island Life
Beware the Leopard
Alex Fergus
30 Dec 2010 - 20:47
Here is a nasty piece of work, not that I want to demonise Leopard Seals or anything, but they are worth being weary of. Carla and I stumbled over this fellow after returning from Camp Cove around the coast toward Tucker Cove. Leopard Seals are not common on Campbell Island, with only a handful likely to be seen in a given year. Those that come ashore are often injured, and take up on the island to convalesce. Leopards are pretty aggressive; they feed on other seals and birds, their...
The bomb shed
Shelley McMurtrie
28 Dec 2010 - 21:21
Alex James and I had a substantial day in the field yesterday (12.5 hour day) sampling Garden Stream, so today was a day at base camp to recover and get ready for a four-day field trip to Norwest Bay tomorrow. I made the most of our packing day and slept in – refusing to get out of bed until 9am. I got up for breakfast to discover I had to wear sunglasses in the lounge with the sun streaming through the windows and pushing the mercury up to a respectably balmy 19 degrees. Almost...
The spotting of the snipe
Shelley McMurtrie
26 Dec 2010 - 21:54
Walking back to base on the Beeman Boardwalk tonight at 10pm I had a wonderful surprise. From beside the walkway by my feet I saw a flash of brown and something fluffy landed on the path in front of me. Not sure what it was (wearing no contacts today so everything was looking pretty blurry to me) I grabbed the video camera. What a surprise when I zoomed in to see the wee Campbell Island Snipe. This tiny strange (but very cute) looking bird was unknown to science until its discovery in 1997...
Grey with a hint of blue
.jpg "Grey with a hint of blue. Clouds shut out the sun over Perseverance Harbour and Beeman Hill while obscuring the top of Mt Honey.")
Alex James
26 Dec 2010 - 21:26
.jpg "Grey with a hint of blue. Clouds shut out the sun over Perseverance Harbour and Beeman Hill while obscuring the top of Mt Honey.")
Having been marooned on Campbell Island for three weeks now over early summer I feel I have a small amount of authority to discuss the weather. The weather here moves by with great speed so you can have a bit of everything over a day. Generally however, conditions could be best described as delightfully dull grey with periodic drizzle and a hint of blue-sky on the horizon that promises but rarely delivers any actual sun. The temperature outside regularly reaches lofty peaks of maybe 10...
My role in the CIBE
Steve Croasdale
26 Dec 2010 - 20:41
I first came to Campbell Island in 1989 for a recce, then several more times over the last 20 years. I was then supporting the meteorological programme by maintaining the essential services at the Beeman base (photo). For the Campbell Island Bicentennial Expedition (CIBE) my role has been similar. We are occupying a still very sound building, first established in the 1950s, developed, but abandoned as a full time occupied meteorological office in 1995 when an automatic weather station was...
Christmas on Campbell Island
-SMcM.jpg "The team having a lovely Christmas dessert.")
-SMcM.jpg "The Mountford Christmas wine selection was devine.")
-SMcM.jpg "Mark trying his Mum’s Christmas cake – it was delish!")
Mark Crompton
25 Dec 2010 - 20:45
-SMcM.jpg "The team having a lovely Christmas dessert.")
-SMcM.jpg "The Mountford Christmas wine selection was devine.")
-SMcM.jpg "Mark trying his Mum’s Christmas cake – it was delish!")
It’s Christmas Night 2010 and the Campbell Island Bicentennial Expedition has been here for nearly three weeks. Carla Meurk and Alex Fergus put on a fine Christmas Dinner and as is traditional we all ate too much. Between the main course and dessert our Leader, Colin Meurk, put on a treasure hunt and it struck a distant chord from childhood birthday parties over 50 years ago.
After dinner I walked around to the old Coastwatcher’s Camp in Tucker Cove and it suddenly...
Not your usual Christmas morning
-SMcM.jpg "The 2010 Campbell Island Christmas choir.")
-SMcM.jpg "The rain comes in and chases everyone away.")
Alex James
25 Dec 2010 - 20:35
-SMcM.jpg "The 2010 Campbell Island Christmas choir.")
-SMcM.jpg "The rain comes in and chases everyone away.")
Christmas morning on Campbell Island was a little different to past Christmases on the mainland I have experienced. It started relatively normally with a tasty pancake breakfast, but since it was a Saturday, our scheduled base cleaning day, after breakfast I was cleaning toilets. While there is nothing particularly difficult about cleaning toilets, it is probably not something most people would usually undertake on Christmas morning.
Once the base was spick and span, we then had to...
Light and Shade on Moody Campbell Island
Colin Meurk
23 Dec 2010 - 20:10
One of the many memorable and distinctive aspects of our daily interactions with and experiences of Campbell Island is the ever shifting patterns of light, colour, shade, dark, gloom and even (!) dismal conditions.
The sun and wind continually play moody tunes on the sea, wildlife, plants and our very existence on the Island. It is not exactly subsistence; but there is deprivation – ambient inside temperatures are around...
The weather and sea lions rule my life
Shelley McMurtrie
22 Dec 2010 - 21:41
The NZ book titled ‘a river rules my life’ comes to mind down here on Campbell Island. Not because we are sampling streams, but because of the similarity to how our lives are completely ruled by a single factor - the weather.
The evenings end with Mark Crompton downloading the weather fax at 10.15pm and writing a forecast that is posted on the hallway wall the following morning. The day then progresses either along the forecasted weather route or can deviate remarkably...
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