After a four-day trip away to the northern extremes of the island we were on our way home again. We had traversed and sampled a part of the island seldom visited by people – Hooker Stream that runs through the Hooker Valley. With the local name of ‘starvation valley’ I guess it is no surprise that not many people decide to frequent this part of the island (or return if they do), but I was thoroughly chuffed we made the effort.
On the final trek home with a pack...
My heart is nailed to Campbell Island
like the aluminium pegs pushed in peat 40 years past
to mark plots with unknown futures
but with some secret aspiration to monitor vegetation change
forever -
attributed to sheep forgotten by shepherds half a century before
And here i am again
trying to locate these spots, being covered over by peat and plants
with fading memories and sepia pics
with fading muscles on spongy puds –...
The freshwater team has just returned from a sampling trip to the Hooker Valley (a.k.a. Starvation Valley) in the far north of Campbell Island. It was known as Starvation Valley in the past because its steep sides meant that once you were in the valley bottom, it would be difficult to get back out. Here we spent three nights in Sorensen Hut (a.k.a. Bull Rock Hut) while sampling four sites along the length of Hooker Stream.
The Hooker Valley is relatively flat bottomed with a steep...
As we near the expedition’s halfway mark I have been thinking about the ways in which each team member expresses his or her creativity. Photography is a passion for many members, especially Shelley who has brought with her an impressive assemblage of photographic equipment in order to capture the island’s environment and aesthetics. The obligatory cooking tasks we share have been appropriated as an opportunity to showcase our culinary flare—a particularly fine art given...
One of my projects has been to make an accurate and definitive record of the Meteorological Station and its ancillary facilities (the station was closed 15 years ago in 1995) before the buildings deteriorate further or are removed altogether (already the Ionosonde Building, Magnetic Building, Fluxgate Magnetometer Hut and Seismo Hut have been dismantled and the Hydrogen Shed and Aurora House are next on the list).
The station forms a small but significant part of our history and...
Hi there folks, just a short one today, more of a photo blog.
As I was coming across the lower slopes of Menhir a whirr beat down above me as a Southern Royal Albatross landed somewhere immediately behind me. Let’s call him (or her) Roy for the sake of ease. Roy had not noticed me from above as I had been photographing some dwarf of a plant under the Dracophyllum scrub. As I got up with the sound of the landing, Roy did a double take, turned and took off out of there. Camera...
2011 was rung in with a bang here on Cambell Island – literally. Mark Crompton and Alex Fergus were up very early on the 2nd of January (e.g., 1am) seeing in Alex’s birthday when they noticed the windows in the MetService lounge were flexing rather alarmingly. The next minute one of the windows crashed in, with glass going everywhere and the wind and rain battering into the room. A quick response from these two lads so early in the morning was quite commendable.
They...
The altercation with the Sea Lion described in my previous blog prompted my reflection upon how the environment mediates human social relationships. It also disrupted our plans. Leaving the veg plots for a day we encountered this creature en-route to one of the islands’ peaks, Mt Paris, where we planned to retake photographs of the landscape pictured in 1907 by the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury. Focused, as we were, on getting around this Bull we mistook a Sea Lion track for...
The other day I was contemplating that since landing all our gear and settling into the base I have had no worries about anything being stolen. Back on the mainland l always make sure the door is locked and the alarm is set which I guess is testament to most peoples constant vigilance about protecting their possessions. Here on Campbell Island there are no locked doors and stuff, while getting misplaced sometimes, never gets stolen. I guess this is partly due to the expedition consisting...
I have cleared encroaching vegetation from the memorial to Leslie Clifton close to the former Magnetic Hut. Clifton produced the first topographical map of Campbell Island in 1946 – it was the standard reference for 40 years until the Department of Lands and Survey published the modern map in 1986 based on aerial photography by the RNZAF in 1984. Clifton worked in very difficult conditions without the aid of modern equipment and instruments today’s cartographers take for...
