‘I now belong to the higher cult of mortals, for I have seen the albatross! … Near by, in the morning sunlight, flew the long-anticipated bird, even more majestic, more supreme in its element, than my imagination had pictured.’
– Robert Cushman Murphy
If you’re looking for a calm and measured blog post about what we saw in Kaikoura, you’re going to need to look elsewhere- I make no excuses for my unbridled fan-girling over these next few hundred words. Kaikoura was a much-anticipated stop on our New Zealand itinerary, having first discovered the delights of the seal-pup play pool on our first visit back in 2015. The 2016 earthquake has since dramatically resculpted that stretch of coastline, of course, but the seals and the dolphins and the little town are still there, ready to share their magic (edit: you can tell I started writing this back in early March eh. Obviously all travel is very much off the table for the time being, but I do live in hope that one day these opportunities will be back open to us all).
Myself and my dad had booked onto a 6am boat to take us to see some albatross, though it turned out that, as the keenest of beans, we were the only two people willing to leave that early. After transferring to a later departing boat, then, we set out to sea. I don’t think we’d even gotten up to full speed when the giant petrels started soaring around the boat, soon to be joined by royal and wandering albatross. I could sit here and ponder for hours what the best set of words is to describe my feelings towards these birds, but thankfully someone already hit the nail on the head. That quote at the top of the post is from Logbook for Grace, a memoir written by a naturalist on a whaling boat that sailed to Antarctic seas. He certainly knew what we was talking about- watching albatross speed past on their almighty wingspans is genuinely a sight to make the heart soar.
Our little boat put out some fish livers, and the first birds were joined by little black and white cape petrels and the wonderfully smoky eyed white-capped and Salvin’s albatross (possibly the most high fashion birds I’ve ever seen). We were lucky enough to see dusky dolphins and even orcas on our trip round the edge of the continental shelf, but for me the best moment came from looking into the eyes of an enormous wandering albatross as it bobbed next to the boat. There’s a good chance that the bird was as old as I am and had circumnavigated the southern oceans over ten times. The things she must have seen, the storms she must have weathered! No wonder people slip into poetry when they’re describing them. It was the sort of life affirming morning that felt like lightning in a bottle, and I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face for days.
