So, let’s go straight to the cute photos.

I suspect that this is what you really want to see?

And I definitely have lots of photos of penguins!

When I did my photography course, together with the research I did before I went away, the advice I was given was that in my photos of penguins I should try and catch them doing something, or interacting in some way, to make the photo more interesting and to give it relevance.

Well I have tried to do this, reinforced with some words to give some of the photos some context. However, when I think back to all of my ‘penguin experiences’, the thing which looms large in my memories is that we were visitors to their world. We were there on their terms. And we were privileged to witness their lives.

Of course, it hasn’t always been like that, as the wildlife of the subantarctic was subject to the most atrocious exploitation, which brought many species to the brink of extinction.

Now, with the strict guardianship of many conservation bodies, access to breeding colonies and habitats are restricted,  sometimes only for scientific purposes.

The consequence of this is that the penguins are amazingly trusting of humans. This, coupled with the fact that they are curious creatures, meant that there were countless photo opportunities.

Therefore, the challenge was often to balance the desire to just experience the situation with the need to take a photo, to somehow preserve the memory.

Fortunately, we had ample time to do both. In most cases, we were given hours at a location – to positively wallow in the environment, and everything it had to offer. There were times when I looked around and felt that I had stepped into a David Attenborough movie; there was so much going on around me, it was overwhelming.

So, where to start?

I know where I’ll finish – with the King Penguins. This is because I have more photos of King Penguins than all the others put together. And this is for two reasons:

• We saw more of them, and
• Their individual characters, and curious and sometimes hilarious antics, were more apparent.

So, I’ll start with the Yellow-eyed Penguins. These are the rarest penguins in the world, estimated to be about 2,000 breeding pairs.

Yellow-eyed Penguins

We saw our first Yellow-eyed Penguin on Enderby Island; a solitary fellow on the beach when we were walking around the island.

We saw more Yellow-eyed Penguins on Campbell Island. Actually, “encountered”  is a more apt term. There is a 3.5 km boardwalk, called the Col-Lyall walk, which meanders up between ridges, to the summit. Towards the start of the walk, you can hear the birdsong of these penguins, and if you peer into the undergrowth, you may see one huddled.

 

Or, you can suddenly encounter one or more on the boardwalk.

We encountered these two when we were quietly tip-toeing down a magically overgrown tunnel of bush, following the bird-like sounds of these penguins. Little did we know, but we were being followed! It was surprise on both sides! We turned around in excitement. And they scampered off into the bush to the side of the path.

The strangely, delicately coloured face of this penguin now looks at me every time I turn on my computer. I have chosen this one for my screen saver.

Snares Crested Penguins

The Snares crested Penguins have the honour of being the first penguins we saw on the trip. We had left the Port of Bluff the day before and were already at our first subantarctic island destination. The Snares are a group of islands about 100km southwest of Stewart Island. We were not permitted to land, and so our first expedition from the ship was a zodiac cruise along this shoreline.

So, it was with great excitement that we spotted the penguins on the rocks.

And not long after the “Penguin slide” came into view!

Gentoo Penguins

We saw Gentoo Penguins on Macquarie Island. I have to say that Macquarie Island presented us with the most extravagant penguin experience. It was quite strange to be wandering around the buildings and along the shoreline, with the penguins seemingly accepting the normality of this coexistence. Clearly they were fine with it – this was just our second encounter with penguins, and I was still getting used to it!

I find the gorgeous fleck of white around their head and eyes to be decidedly stylish.

Adelie Penguins

So, now I’m jumping forward to our time in McMurdo Sound.

The 20^th February was a big day! We had arrived at the Ross Ice shelf early that morning, and in the bitter cold (minus 15 degrees, or minus 45 degrees with the wind chill) had gazed in awe at the wall of ice in front of us. (More of this later)  We then cruised on to Cape Bird, where we went ashore to stroll among these adorable penguins.

It was snowing, and visibility wasn’t that great. The Adelies were scattered across the hillside, sometimes indistinguishable from the rocky outcrops and ledges dotted throughout the landscape. They had the right idea – huddling in the lee of a ledge or rock to keep out of the bitter wind.

The young penguins stayed close to their parents, to keep safe from the Skuas – large predatory birds which were always on the lookout for a stray chick to whisk away. They are a force to be reckoned with, I can assure you from first-hand experience! At one point another passenger and I had obviously strayed too close to a Skua chick, and we were dive-bombed in true “Magpie”  fashion. The only problem is that a Skua is about four times the size of a Magpie! We high-tailed out of the danger zone quick smart!

Later on, we met up with more Adelies when we visited the huts. Resourceful as they are, they used the boxes and other debris left by early explorers to shield themselves from the weather. The photos below were taken at Shackleton’s hut.

Emperor Penguins

The day still hadn’t finished. After dinner that evening, the ship cruised further into McMurdo Sound. We had heard that, two weeks earlier, an ice breaker had cut a 12 mile channel through the ice towards the bases. We wanted to know whether the channel was still open. Unfortunately, it wasn’t, and that meant that we were unable to visit either McMurdo base or Scott Base; somewhat disappointing. However, there were better experiences in store for us. And they involved Emperor Penguins!

As we cruised along the edge of the ice that evening, we saw our first Emperor Penguins. They appeared to be waiting for us as we approached.

The early winter sea ice, while preventing us from getting to the bases, presented us with many opportunities to see these majestic creatures, as we would often return to the ice edge in search of wildlife – penguins and orcas.

On one very special occasion, we were let off onto the ice, so that we could wander around with Emperor Penguins, in the middle of the most amazing spectacle of mountains, glaciers, ice and sea.

And I was amused to see that I wasn’t the only one mesmerised by the view…..

And then it was time to move on….

It was all incredibly breathtaking. And quite surreal.

Royal Penguins

I remember when I saw the King Penguins at Macquarie Island; we had already seen the Snares Crested Penguins and the Gentoos. And then the Royal Penguins were added to the mix.  I was in penguin overload. All these noble names were doing my head in. And I hadn’t even met the Emperor Penguins at that stage. The naming convention for penguins definitely had a predilection for the stately and majestic.

We met the Royal Penguins at Sandy Bay (where we also met the King Penguins, incidentally).

This was the time of year when the parents are finally free to leave the colony to feed. The chicks had congregated into creches, and were moulting, ahead of being completely independent.

Meanwhile, the adults were busy running to and fro, from the colony, nestled in a valley behind the beach, to the sea.

At Sandy Bay, the King Penguins and Royal Penguins seemed to get on quite well, although there were the occasional differences of opinion?!

Like the time when I witnessed two King Penguins approach the Royal Penguin creche, to get a closer look at the messy chicks, nestled together amid all the moulted feathers, looking very disheveled and smelling similarly unsavoury. The two King Penguins appeared to be tut-tutting, as they skirted around the edge of the creche, until finally they turned their backs on the whole confusion, and strutted off with their heads high, as a Royal Penguin squawked after them, “and good riddance to you too!”

King Penguins

A question was recently posed to me; if I was told that I would lose all recollection of my trip except for one memory, what would be the memory I would like to preserve.

Well, I thought for a moment, and promptly demanded that it would have to be four:

• One memory would have to be the voyage itself – my time on the ship; complete with rolling seas, wake-up calls on the loudspeaker, fabulous meals, new friends, card games, sea-legs, lectures, briefings, the bridge, the special solitary moments on the fore deck, the tag board, quarantine (I’ll explain later), the zodiacs. The whole adventure of it all!
• The spectacle of the Antarctic was a must-have. The vision of the Ross Ice Shelf was amazing. The vision of mountains and glaciers which surrounded McMurdo Sound were a puzzling blend of fantasy and reality. I felt privileged to be there – to be one of less than a hundred tourists to visit the Ross Sea that year.
• After nearly a year of reading about the courageous polar expeditions of men like Ross, Scott, Shackleton, Mawson and the many more who lived and died during the age of polar exploration, seeing the historic huts was absolutely a highlight. To be in the actual buildings from where some of the expeditions left was quite humbling.
• The final memory which I simply could not relinquish was my visit to Sandy Bay to be with the King Penguins.

The experience started well before we even stepped ashore, as the King Penguins are so curious that they had to swim out to the ship and accompany the zodiacs as we motored towards the beach.

We had hours to spend there.

To potter.

To sit still and let the penguins come to us (which they did).

To watch their antics as they interacted with each other, with the Royal Penguins, and with us. To listen to their calls.

After Sandy Bay, there was another King Penguin sight to come. We were not permitted to land at Lusitainia Bay. But that didn’t matter. The impact was best experienced from a distance, from where the gradual realisation of what we were witnessing slowly dawned upon us, as we approached the shore.

You see, what I originally took to be a shoreline of rocks and pebbles, was in fact thousands and thousands of king penguins!

And, as if there wasn’t enough room for them all on the shore, the sea around the ship was also packed with penguins, who swam out to investigate, and then accompany us towards the shore as they had done at Sandy Bay, ducking and diving around the zodiacs, and leaping out of the water at great speed.

I don’t want to forget a single moment of the whole display.