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CRUISE control JOURNEY to THE END of the EARTH

Escaping battling elephant seals and being surrounded by hundreds of thousands of penguins are memorable moments as Brook Sabin explores South Georgia on a polar expedition ship

Trupti Trupti Biradar editor

The last time I sat down to write about cruises was in March 2020 and we were just about to send a glossy cruise magazine off to print.

More than 100,000 Kiwis had already holidayed at sea and every day we reported on the launch of new ships and routes, as well as crazy technology on board, including magic carpet rides, virtual butlers and more. It was the magazine’s deadline day when Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern warned Kiwis that a new virus was circulating and that cruising was not a good idea. We pulled the magazine of course, and a week later we all experienced our first lockdown.

Cruising supported thousands of jobs across Aotearoa and pumped more than $500 million into our economy in the year before the pandemic. Its return is important for our recovery. But with the hiatus came the chance for us to reset.

And it has proved to be “a reset that allowed the cruise industry to take a complete bow-to-stern examination and develop the best possible health protocols in response,” says Joel Katz, managing director of Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA).

“The industry worked with medical experts and health authorities internationally to introduce measures which go well beyond those of most other industries, and which have been shown to be effective in mitigating the risks of Covid-19.”

The pandemic also allowed the Stuff Travel team to reset – to focus on travel that was more sustainable, responsible, and took into account climate change and overtourism. While we welcome crusing’s return, we want to help our readers make the right choices.

From Brook Sabin’s tale of meeting some of the millions of penguins that call South Georgia home, to Lorna Thornber’s tips for sustainable cruising, we hope you’ll find inspiration for your next adventure at sea.

“Run!” I’m watching more than 100,000 penguins go about their lives, when three tonnes of blubber starts racing towards me. Our expedition leaders shout at me to get out of the way, as I pick up my camera and begin to sprint.

The elephant seal isn’t chasing me; he’s seen a rival male sneaking up on his harem. If I don’t move quickly, I will be an unwanted little pickle in a testosterone-fuelled elephant seal sandwich.

Welcome to South Georgia, one of the most spectacular islands in the world. This inhospitable land sitting off South America, north of Antarctica, is roughly twice the size of Auckland and home to one of the highest concentrations of polar wildlife on the planet. It is a frozen city; with roughly nine million penguins, 400,000 elephant seals and 50 million seabirds – all framed against glaciercovered mountains that soar into the clouds.

While you soak up that majestic picture, I have a crisis to deal with: outrunning a seal the size of a station wagon. I can’t help but laugh as I flee.

Elephant seals make four distinct noises: they scream like goats, roar like lions, belch

Homer Simpson style, and intriguingly, the pups have a remarkable repertoire of farting noises they make with their nostrils.

As the two males charge towards each other, they’re running over everything in their path. All I can hear is a cacophony of sounds. After running out of their direct line of fighting, I spin around to watch. The two bulls rise up on their rear flippers and release a bone-chilling roar, blowing big clouds of hot steam in each other’s faces. They begin to smack heads; remarkably the passing penguins don’t even turn to watch. But this fight is over quickly; the smaller male soon realises he’s out blubbered and spins on his belly in an unusual display of elegance – before fleeing in the opposite direction. This starts a new round of screams, belches and farts as he runs over every seal in his escape path. The young bull doesn’t get far before the next male down the beach issues a warning roar.

It’s a domino of desperation; elephant seal males have more testosterone than any other mammal, and the largest bulls tightly guard their pack from young challengers. The scene is spectacular; all that is missing is a David Attenborough voiceover.

A journey to South Georgia guarantees one thing: the adventure of a lifetime. The only way there is by ship, and wellknown Kiwis have never been far from the action, right back to the days of Sir Ernest Shackleton.

A JOURNEY TO THE LAST FRONTIER

With a thump, our charter plane lands at the end of the world: Ushuaia. The city, on the southern tip of South America, is where our polar expedition ship is waiting. The flight is stunning; our descent weaving through the mountains of Patagonia.

Lindblad Expeditions is a pioneer of polar tourism, it led one of the first non-scientific expeditions to Antarctica back in 1966. Today, the company has partnered with National Geographic to

offer cruises – meaning its photographers, writers, and field researchers are aboard the ship offering guests an insight into their remarkable work.

We arrive at the dock to find our small luxury ship, the National Geographic Explorer, readying for departure.

But before we sail towards South Georgia, across an often angry South Atlantic, we must first head to our quarantine point: the Falkland Islands. South Georgia is a pristine wildlife refuge, and strict checks of the ship and passengers need to take place. But, we’re about to discover the Falklands is a remarkable destination in its own right.

REMOTE AND MAGNIFICENT

Most of the 3000 people who call the Falklands home are found in the capital township of Stanley. A further 1200 are at a military base, and the rest of the locals live in “camp” – in other words, in the wops.

Our ship is parked in a remote turquoise bay, allowing us to visit one of the camps, and the magnificent wildlife that surrounds it.

We take an hour-long walk to a dramatic cliff edge to see an albatross colony. Thousands of birds are nesting in every nook on the side of the hill. Beside each one, competing for space in a continuous squawk, are just as many rockhopper penguins.

We spend a second day in the Falklands watching how penguins make beach landings. They play in the water, dolphin diving and catching waves, before launching themselves onto the sand.

A FROZEN LAND

Our two-day voyage from the Falklands out to South Georgia is full of whale sightings and unusually calm seas. The days are filled with photo workshops by National Geographic photographers and lectures from remarkable leaders like Dr Joe MacInnis. The Canadian was the first to explore the ocean beneath the North Pole and one of the first to dive to the wreck of the Titanic.

By the third day at sea, South Georgia’s towering mountains came into view. This Jurassic land has been hundreds of millions of years in the making. It was formed after a small piece of South America’s Andes broke off and, due to tectonic drift over millions of years, now finds itself a frozen paradise in the South Atlantic.

Our first landing is at Salisbury Plain, where we are taken ashore in small inflatable Zodiacs. I will never forget reaching land and being greeted by 100,000 penguins covering almost every inch of the beach. In between them are thousands of elephant seals.

One of the ship’s naturalists explains the scene. There are an estimated 40,000 penguin chicks on the beach and they are causing big headaches for their parents. While the adults

is JURASSIC LAND has BEEN HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of YEARS in THE MAKING

head to the ocean to hunt for food, the chicks wander around the beach.

When the parents return, it’s like a constant game of Where’s Wally. They’re left trying to find their young among a crowd of 100,000 other penguins and thousands of grunting elephant seals. Their only tool to try and find their chick is to squeal. So the beach is filled with a constant screech of parents and chicks trying to find each other.

We watch a reunion; the chick does a little excited dance, realising Mum is home, before opening its beak where the parent deposits what can generously be described as “seafood chowder”.

By lunch we’re back on the ship, enjoying sustainably caught crayfish as we relocate to a sheltered bay to kayak around icebergs.

In the evening, the entire ship, which has around 120 guests, gathers in the lounge for a “recap”. This is where Lindblad’s experts – photo instructors who accompany us on the trips or the ship’s polar divers – present their perspective of the day, including footage of the unearthly creatures under our bow. Then it’s off to a threecourse, fine-dining dinner and drinks. That’s one of many remarkable things about Lindblad; five-star luxury is offered in one of the most remote parts of the world.

The following days are spent on a sunrise mission to a penguin colony, touring narrow fiords packed with glaciers, and visiting decaying whaling stations. More than 175,000 whales were taken from the waters off South Georgia and many species were almost hunted to extinction. Fur seals faced the same fate and, with little fuel for fires, even penguins were used as kindling by the whalers.

However, 50 years later, South Georgia has made a remarkable comeback. Wildlife is thriving and, thanks to Kiwi helicopter pilots who helped with recent baiting operations, the most extensive rat eradication in the world has taken place, allowing the seabird population to explode.

Nowhere is the island’s remarkable recovery more evident than St Andrew’s Bay, where we found around 300,000 king penguins on a single stretch of sand. It took more than 40 minutes for the crew to find a gap for us to walk onto the beach.

A TOAST FOR ‘THE BOSS’

South Georgia is also home to one of the greatest survival stories – and a Kiwi played an important role.

In 1914, Sir Ernest Shackleton and his men attempted to make the first crossing of the Antarctic continent. Their ship, Endurance, was captained by New Zealand navigator Frank Worsley, and became stuck in pack ice and drifted for months before sinking.

After a further five months camping on floating ice, the crew made it to remote Elephant Island. Their only means of rescue was for six of the 28 crew to jump into a small makeshift lifeboat and sail up to South Georgia. The men – navigated by Worsley – faced one of the most treacherous seas on the planet, and the 16-day voyage is considered one of the world’s greatest feats of seamanship.

After reaching South Georgia, the men faced a perilous walk across glaciers to raise help at a whaling station. Our expedition spent a day tracing their footsteps, covering the final part of the journey. Even more poignant was visiting Shackleton’s final resting place; the explorer was buried on the island after suffering a heart attack in later years. As is tradition, visitors to his tombstone drink a shot of whisky, then toast “The Boss” by pouring their remaining shot over Shackleton’s grave.

South Georgia filled me with utter joy. After decades of environmental atrocities on the island, humans have let nature thrive uninterrupted for 50 years. The result is a frozen version of Africa; truly one of Earth’s last wildlife wonderlands.

We FOUND AROUND 300,000 KING PENGUINS on a SINGLE BEACH

CRUISE

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2022-08-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-08-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

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