On the trail of Cook in remote South West New Zealand: Dusky Sound and the Solander Islands
Today we enjoyed a mix of wildlife experiences, scenery to die for, and a view of one of the World’s wildest places. All this occurred in the process of following the trail of Captain Cook in some of the remotest corners of New Zealand.
Our day began in Dusky Sound, Fiordland, with a journey to Luncheon Cove in the Oceanic Discoverer’s launch, the Xplorer. Luncheon Cove was so named in 1773 by Captain James Cook, who lunched there during an exploratory mission, carried out during a lengthy sojourn in Dusky Sound. Cook’s men were resting after 117 days exploring the Southern Ocean, part of his second voyage. They found the Sound teeming with bird and seal life, much of which ended up as specimens or dinner for the Captain and his crew. We of the Linblad team confined ourselves to shooting with cameras, when encountering several parties of New Zealand fur seals during our own journey. A number of pups were able to elicit suitable appreciative noises from the audience as a result of their excessive cuteness.
From Luncheon Cove we headed across the Sound, falling in with the sizable resident bottlenose dolphin pod. The number of baby dolphins in the pod elicited similar responses from our party to those brought on by the seal pups. The dolphins, seals and various sea and land birds observed in the Sound show that wildlife is still plentiful there, though not in the numbers recorded by Cook in the eighteenth century.
We followed in the trail of the Worthy Navigator to Pickersgill Harbour, the site in Dusky Sound where the Resolution was berthed for almost two months. The almost horizontal Rata tree that Cook’s crew had used as their ships gang plank was still to be found by our landing site; a living monument. We trekked dutifully up to Astronomer’s Point, where the Resolution’s astronomer, William Wales, had made stellar observations to test the accuracy of the new-fangled chronometer. All that remained of this early site of European presence in New Zealand was regrowing native forest and some very historic tree stumps, scarcely visible under moss and small ferns. The area remains witness to the history of navigation and of cultural encounters in the Pacific. Even in this remote site Cook’s men encoutered local Maori, who put up with the pesky biting sandflies to hunt the abundant game in Dusky Sound. Our team, just as Cook’s men had, found the local insect life all too attentive, although sandfly numbers were relatively low on this occasion.
From Dusky Sound the Oceanic Discoverer made her way to the remote Solander Islands, a wildlife haven standing alone in the seas to the northwest of Stewart Island. On his first voyage Cook named the Solanders for one of the expedition botanists, Daniel Solander, a Swedish disciple of the great taxonomist Carl Linneaus. The Solanders are a major breeding site for Buller’s Albatross, as well as for Fiordland Crested Penguin, Fairy Prion, Sooty Shearwater and the Kakariki, or Red Crowned Parakeet. The mammals are represented by thousands of New Zealand Fur Seals. The only introduced animals are the Stewart Island Weka on Big Solander Island, a flightless rail that causes some impact on local seabird populations.
We made no attempt to land on the islands, which are a wildlife reserve, instead circumnavigating them. In the process we observed the rugged profiles of the two islands and their surrounding rocks. The ocean going traveller can appreciate the Maori legend that these islands were the broken teeth of a mythical sea monster, which chewed its way through Fouveaux Strait, thus separating Stewart Island (Rakiura) from the mainland. The traditional name for Big Solander Island, Hautere, means place of fast winds, appropriate for a site in the roaring forties. We, however, were lucky with our weather, just a slight swell but enough wind to allow a mass of seabirds to sail by. The Albatross count by the end of the day included five species, the White Capped Albatross, Wandering Albatross, Salvin’s Albatross, Southern Royal Albatross and the Buller’s Albatross, the principal breeding bird on the Solander’s. The steep slopes of the rocky Solanders provide and ideal place for such breeding seabirds, while the rocky beaches are a haven for New Zealand Fur Seals.
A pleasure to spend the day in this remote part of the world and then head on for further adventures at Stewart Island on the morrow.
