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Wild Edge of the Pacific: Part II - Chatham Islands to Fiordland
16 days - Prices $8,980 to $14,980
Departures:
12/8/2009
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Ship(s):
Clipper Odyssey (charter)
Trip
Highlights:
Luxury expedition ship, outstanding naturalists and guides, excellent birding, Milford Sound, Campbell and Enderby Island, Snares Islands, Chatham Island.
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Rates:
$8,980 to $14,980
Summary:
New Zealand?s Sub-Antarctic Islands are a paradise for nature lovers and a place of pilgrimage for birders. The wild Chathams boast 18 unique bird species and the tiny cluster of Bounty Islands are noted for cliff-nesting Bounty Island shags. The Antipodes are home to half the world's population of erect-crested penguins, and in the Sub-Antarctic Islands dusky dolphins, sperm whales, legendary yellow-eyed penguins, southern royal albatross, petrels, and sooty shearwaters are highlights. The scenic splendors and magnificent geography of the World Heritage areas of Doubtful, Dusky, and Milford Sounds of New Zealand make a fitting finale.
This voyage may be combined with Wild Edge of the Pacific: Part I.
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Trip
Itinerary
Days 1-2: Depart USA
Depart on your independent flight from USA to New Zealand. Day lost crossing the International Date Line.
Day 3: Auckland, New Zealand
Arrive in Auckland in the morning and transfer to your hotel. Spread over a narrow isthmus between two dazzling harbors, Auckland is a multi-cultural metropolis sitting on the doorstep of a natural wonderland. After lunch at your hotel a tour reveals the highlights of ?the city of sails.? Dinner and overnight.
Day 4: Auckland / Chatham Island / Embark the Clipper Odyssey
After the morning at leisure and lunch at your hotel, you fly to Chatham Island and embark the Clipper Odyssey.
Situated nearly 500 miles from the New Zealand mainland, this isolated group of ten islands offers a mind-boggling array of botanicals and birdlife, supremely photogenic landscapes, and welcoming locals who live and work in New Zealand?s easternmost community. The Chathams? unique nature statistics include 320 indigenous species of flora?29 of these exist nowhere else on Earth. Eighteen species of birds are unique to the islands and include the Chatham Island black robin, famous as being the hero of one of the world?s most inspiring conservation stories, as well as the shore plover and the Chatham Island pigeon, among the world?s rarest birds.
These unique and wild lands were once the home of the Moriori people, the Chathams? first settlers, believed to have sailed originally from Polynesia via New Zealand around 1,000 years ago.
For Travelers Continuing from Voyage I: After breakfast you begin a day-long excursion to Waitangi West, past farmlands, native bush, and Lake Te Roto. At Port Hutt, a small fishing village, you visit the historic landing site of the Maori when they invaded from New Zealand and in Maunganui, you see the remains of houses where German missionaries once lived. Waitangi, situated on Petre Bay, is the main port in the Chatham Islands and home to 300 residents. Fern-covered hills backdrop a picturesque beach where you enjoy a picnic lunch and may have the opportunity to meet local farmers.
Day 5: Chatham Island
After breakfast you have a choice of two excursions. The first is a drive through farmlands and past superb coastal scenery to Awatotara for a bush walk to search for the Chatham Island warbler and Chatham Island pigeon. Or, you visit ?Plum Tree,? a popular spot with the locals situated on the Te Whanga Lagoon, where you can see petroglyphs that date back to early Moriori days.
In the afternoon you gather for a lunch of local specialties and cultural time at the local Marae, which celebrates three distinct cultural groups: the Moriori, the Maori, and Chatham Islanders. You have the option to visit Owenga, a small settlement near Cape Fournier on the easternmost point on the island. Along the way you visit a monument to Tommy Solomon, the last full-blooded Moriori who died in 1933. You return to the ship for dinner and overnight.
Day 6: Pitt Island
Low-lying Pitt is the first inhabited island to see the sunrise. It is also home to the easternmost house in the world, and to the nikau palm which is the farthest point from the equator of a naturally growing palm tree. The endemic Pitt Island shag makes its home along the rocky shores, and just this past spring, 20 Chatham Island snipe were released on the island. Expedition cruising takes you around the island and you watch for the Chatham Island petrel and the very rare magenta petrel. By Zodiac you cruise around the perimeter of The Pyramid, a huge triangular wedge of rock, for a thrilling close-up look at the only breeding place of the world?s remaining 11,000 Chatham albatross.
Day 7: Bounty Island
One of New Zealand?s Sub-Antarctic island groups, Bounty is part of the World Heritage Park renowned for its incredible biodiversity, density of wildlife, and high rate of endemism. Captain William Bligh discovered this cluster of 20 tiny islands in 1788 and named them for his ship. By ship and Zodiac you cruise the shores of the largest island, a mere one-half-mile square, which is home to the rare erect-crested penguin (which nests only here and on Antipodes Island), nearly 600 pairs of Bounty Island shag, and more than 100,000 Salvin?s albatross.
Day 8: Antipodes Island
To the south lies another small island grouping, the Antipodes where you explore the rugged coast of the principal namesake island. A former station of sealing gangs in the early 19th century (more than 400,000 were hunted), followed by penguin skin traders in the latter part of that century, and temporary home to the survivors of numerous shipwrecks, Antipodes remains a wild and inhospitable place of wave-pounded cliffs and wind-blown tussocks. No landings are permitted, but Zodiacs bring you close to the shores to search for the 200,000 pairs of erect-crested penguins that make their home here, as well as the endemic Antipodes parakeet.
Day 9: At Sea
Join your naturalists on deck for incredible opportunities to view and photograph northern royal, shy, and Buller?s albatross, Antarctic fulmar, plus a host of southern ocean petrels.
Day 10: Campbell Island
This morning you anchor off Campbell Island, the southernmost sub-Antarctic island. Birders and photographers thrill to close encounters with southern royal and light-mantled sooty albatross and Hooker?s sea lions. Broad bays, vertical headlands, and surf-washed beaches backdrop our exploration.
Day 11: Enderby Island, Auckland Islands
The Aucklands are regarded as the most diverse of all wildlife havens fringing the great Antarctic continent. Enderby?s varied landscape of wave-battered basalt cliffs, serene fiord-like inlets and bays, and rata forests is home to Hooker?s sea lions and yellow-eyed penguins?one of the rarest penguins in the world. In the elfin forest of twisted trunks, you search for melodious bellbirds, diminutive tomtits, and colorful red-crowned parakeets. Other endemic birds include the Auckland Island shag, banded dotterel, and flightless teal.
Day 12: Snares Islands
With fur seals and penguins lining the kelp-covered shores, you board Zodiacs and cruise around the Snares Islands, home to endemic bird species such as the Snares tomtit, Snares fern bird, and the Snares crested penguin.
Day 13: Stewart Island / Ulva Island
Peaceful Stewart Island, home to only 480 residents, is ringed with golden beaches backed by dunes and thick forests which shelter an abundance of birds. You anchor near Halfmoon Bay for an exploration of Oban, New Zealand?s southernmost township. You also visit Ulva Island, a bird sanctuary, with the hope of spotting kaka, a threatened native parrot.
Day 14: Dusky and Doubtful Sound, Fiordland National Park
Cruise these pristine fiords and board Zodiacs to explore remote coves where Captain Cook anchored his ship, the Resolution, in 1773. Watch for rare Fiordland crested penguins and join your naturalists on deck to search for bottlenose dolphins, fur seals, and little blue penguins.
Day 15: Milford Sound / Disembark the Clipper Odyssey / Queenstown
Sheer cliff faces rise thousands of feet from the water?s edge and you explore this awe-inspiring wonderland with its dramatic cascades and stunning mile-high Mitre Peak. You drive through the three-quarter-mile-long Homer Tunnel, completed 20 years after it was started, to look for the endemic South Island wrens, then walk through a primeval Fiordland beech forest and cross foot bridges over the Cleddau River with its spectacular waterfalls. After lunch in lakeside Te Anau, you continue to Queenstown. Dinner and overnight at your hotel in Queenstown.
Day 16: Queenstown / USA
Transfer to the airport for your independent flights homeward.
Notes:
Included
Accommodations in our hotels and on board Clipper Odyssey as outlined in the itinerary; all onboard meals; all group meals on land; group transfers; services of the expedition staff, including lectures, briefings, slide/film shows; all group activities and excursions; landing and port fees; all gratuities.
Not Included
All air transportation; excess baggage charges; airport arrival and departure taxes; transfers for independent arrivals and departures; passport and/or visa fees; travel insurance; items of a personal nature such as laundry, bar charges, alcoholic beverages, e-mail/fax/telephone charges.
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