The Subantarctic: wild islands far south of New Zealand
Far from the usual tourist crowd, these remote islands showcase stunning wilderness and amazing animals

Antarctic cruises have never been so popular, with roughly 100,000 passengers a year. About 98% of them sail from South America to the Antarctic Peninsula, in the west. But just a few sail to the south of the continent, from New Zealand, said Jamie Lafferty in The Telegraph.
The distance to Antarctica itself is far greater from here, so these ships tend to head to a series of small archipelagoes known as the Subantarctic Islands. The westerly winds at these latitudes are nicknamed the Roaring Forties and Furious Fifties for good reason, and, without the shelter of the Peninsula, the Southern Ocean can be especially "pitiless". As a result, cruises face a higher chance of failure, but for some (keen birders, in particular) the risk is worth it, so magnificent are the islands and their abundant wildlife.
I chose a 17-day Birding Down Under cruise with Heritage Expeditions, leaving from the Port of Bluff on New Zealand's South Island. Our first dose of the region's "rawness" was the Snares Islands, a "ragged" archipelago home to several endemic bird species including the yellow-crested Snares penguin. Next came Enderby, one of the Auckland Islands, where we admired "remarkable" megaherbs and dodged sea lions during a coastal hike. And then we reached our southernmost destination, Macquarie Island, which came close to ecological ruin in the early 20th century thanks to a politician called Joseph Hatch. For almost three decades, he and his men fed the island's penguins and elephant seals through steam-pressure "digesters" to extract their oil, killing millions of them. Today, however, Macquarie's beaches teem with wildlife once more. On Campbell Island, we spotted southern royal albatrosses – among the world's largest flying birds.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Finally, we visited the Antipodes Islands, so strictly protected that we could not land, but we explored their "dramatic" coastline in dinghies, marvelling at the rare parakeets and erect-crested penguins.
The cruise costs from £11,695pp, excluding flights (heritage-expeditions.com).
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Garsington Opera opens its summer festival with two 'very different productions'
The Week Recommends A 'fabulous' new staging of Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades and Donizetti's fake-love-potion comedy L'elisir d'amore
-
The Rehearsal series two: Nathan Fielder's docu-comedy is 'laugh-out-loud funny'
The Week Recommends Television's 'great illusionist' has turned his attention to commercial airline safety
-
The Ballad of Wallis Island: bittersweet British comedy is a 'delight'
The Week Recommends A reclusive millionaire lures his favourite folk duo to an island for an 'awkward reunion'
-
Garsington Opera opens its summer festival with two 'very different productions'
The Week Recommends A 'fabulous' new staging of Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades and Donizetti's fake-love-potion comedy L'elisir d'amore
-
The Rehearsal series two: Nathan Fielder's docu-comedy is 'laugh-out-loud funny'
The Week Recommends Television's 'great illusionist' has turned his attention to commercial airline safety
-
The Ballad of Wallis Island: bittersweet British comedy is a 'delight'
The Week Recommends A reclusive millionaire lures his favourite folk duo to an island for an 'awkward reunion'
-
Aston Martin Vantage Roadster: 'a rare treat indeed'
The Week Recommends The Roadster version of Aston Martin's new Vantage coupé makes even 'the most mundane journey feel special'
-
Bad Friend: Tiffany Watt Smith explores why women abandon friendships
The Week Recommends A 'deeply researched' account of female friendship through history
-
Film reviews: The Phoenician Scheme, Bring Her Back, and Jane Austen Wrecked My Life
Feature A despised mogul seeks a fresh triumph, orphaned siblings land with a nightmare foster mother, and a Jane fan finds herself in a love triangle
-
Music reviews: Tune-Yards and PinkPantheress
Feature "Better Dreaming" and "Fancy That"
-
Art review: Jeffrey Gibson: The Space in Which to Place Me
Feature The Broad, Los Angeles, through Sept. 28