Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service summer ranger Carly calls Brothers Point Hut her second home, regularly travelling to Sandy Bay to welcome visitors to Macquarie Island. A limited number of ships visit Macquarie Island during the summer educational tourist season as part of voyages that go to New Zealand’s sub-Antarctic islands and sometimes also to Antarctica.
Tourist visits are carefully managed by Macquarie Island’s rangers, including biosecurity monitoring, looking after the wildlife and maintaining visitor infrastructure.
While the four hour walk up Doctors track, across island on the Overland track and down Sandy Bay track is a frequent journey for the summer ranger, it is a different experience every time. The first trip I was spoilt with a still and sunny day – that’s right, no wind! Each walk since has been different with a combination of wind, gusts, rain, hail, snow and a few more sunny days thrown in for good measure.
When covered in fog you tend to notice the geological and vegetation changes and take in the detail of plants and their flowering cycles, compared to those sunny clear days taking in the stunning rolling landscape, lake and ocean views.
At my destination, Sandy Bay, these regular visits have allowed me the opportunity to get to know the wildlife. For example, I have followed the royal penguins from egg, chick and the first swim into adulthood all happening in the last two months.
And the feathers, so many feathers! First the king penguins and now the royals have started to return to moult as well as the odd visiting gentoo. How can I forget to mention the elephant seal, coming in sizes of weaner (large), big, bigger, and enormous. I am told the mammoth ones are yet to come!
I enjoy welcoming the tourists at Sandy Bay, sharing my observations and experiences with them. Their plethora of questions and keen interest to know more about Macquarie Island and its inhabitants (wildlife or human) reinvigorates my excitement (well I am not sure I have lost it yet) to keep observing behaviours and get to know these amazing (but sometimes land clumsy) creatures.
There is always a question where I go ‘oh, I don’t know’ which get me researching and ready with an answer for the next time someone asks.
While I am looking forward to the coming months and exploring other areas of Macquarie Island, I think I have a soft spot for Sandy Bay now, waiting to see the changes (weather and wildlife) that are yet to come. My curious mind asking: ‘What’s next?’
