The 2023 Strannik Auckland Island Expedition: Our favourite places and plants

Meet the eleven members of the research team and crew that participated in the 2023 Strannik Auckland Island Expedition. After spending four weeks on the expedition to Motu Maha Auckland Islands, and getting to know most of the main Auckland Island (and nearby Enderby Island), we experienced so many amazing places and plants. Read on to discover each of our favourites!

Rodney Russ

Expedition role: Expedition co-leader, and owner and captain of the MV Strannik.

Favourite plant: the southern rātā tree (Metrosideros umbellata) and the rātā forest, which is like no other forest I know anywhere in the world.  It is just as well Sir Peter Jackson didn’t know about it, otherwise he would have wanted to film the Lord of the Rings there. It is otherworldly; it stands tall and majestic, stunned and gnarled, open and inviting, thick and impenetrable, when it is flowering it is outstandingly beautiful when it is not flowering it is simply a canopy of different shades of green.

Its vernacular name is iron wood. It is hard and heavy, perhaps an adaptation to living in this hostile yet beautiful environment. No other tree encapsulates the beauty of the subantarctic environment quite like the rātā. To walk through the rātā forest when it is flowering and the ground beneath the trees are carpeted in red flowers is akin to a walk through some greatest cathedrals of the world. It is spiritual.       

Favourite place: Enderby Island. A very hard choice, but there are some simply amazing places there. There is so much to love about Enderby Island, some would say it is like a mistress to me.  It was my first subantarctic Island. I was just 18 years of age a cadet on the American, Australian and New Zealand  1972/73 Expedition.

It was love at first sight, and it is a love that has never died and never faltered. It has only deepened and strengthened  over the years and during the many visits I have made (note I have visited Enderby Island over 100 times). In the intervening years I have also visited countless other subantarctic Islands. While they are all beautiful, magnificent and amazing, there are none as beautiful and amazing as Enderby Island.

It has everything, including sandy beaches, rātā forest and alpine vegetation. Sea lions, fur seals and occasional elephant seals can be found on the beaches and rocky shores. Albatross, penguins, flightless teal, elusive snipe, bellbirds, tomtits, parakeets and falcons can be observed and enjoyed in a way that is not possible anywhere else.

And when the megaherbs flower, “it’s a floral display second to none outside the tropics” to quote Sir Joseph Hooker who was botanist on the Ross Expedition under the command of Sir James Clark Ross when they visited the Auckland Islands in 1840 on the Erebus and Terror.             

Katie Frame

Expedition role: Crew member on the MV Strannik. In real life Katie is an optometrist!

Favourite plant: Gentians! Between the awe of the subantarctic megaherbs and lobbying of botanists for plant favour, for some reason I always found myself drawn back to these little gems. I guess I didn’t expect to associate survival with such colour and intracity.  Respect, little gentian plants!

Favourite place: Tower of Babel/Fleming Plateau. I was torn between the Hooker’s sea lions of Sandy Beach on Enderby Island and a hike Rodney and I did up to the top of the Tower of Babel on Auckland Island, exploring the Fleming Plateau along the way.

As much as the antics of Sandy Beach warmed a person’s heart, the Tower of Babel could stir a person’s soul.  I recall walking for 10 hours that day, and feeling nothing other than awe. 

Alex Fergus

Expedition role: Expedition co-leader, research team leader. In real life Alex is an researcher in ecology with Manaaki Whenua-Landcare Research.

Favourite plant: Plantago aucklandica (the unexpected “megaherb”). I first visited Auckland Island in 2005, as a wayward youth (I was collecting seaweeds and other things as an Enderby Trust Scholarship recipient on a Heritage Expedition trip – so perhaps not too wayward).

Since that time, and I have been lucky enough to visit the islands with some frequency, I have always looked to high peaks of main Auckland Island and Adams Island and wondered if I’d ever get up there. There is a suite of alpine or upland taxa that I’ve always been keen to better understand, the likes of Agrostis subulata, Azorella schizeilema, Cardamine latior, Colobanthus hookeri, Geum albiflorum, and Plantago aucklandica.

And while Plantago aucklandica wasn’t the first of these I would meet, it was a standout for its size, plasticity, local abundance, it was a sheer joy to learn it’s ecology and know where to expect it a landscape. I won’t go any further here as I know Heidi has a blog in mind for this very species, so you can consider my blurb here a primer for that.

Favourite place: Anywhere above 300 m altitude! (And most places below 300 m altitude too.) I’ll put this question in the “too difficult” basket. All our upland adventures were amazing, the sites all interesting, different and exciting. The Western Cliffs near the Hookers Hills, Omega Peak, Giants Archway, Fleming Plateau, Mt Wilkes. Drop me onto the island tops and I’ll be happy. 

Brian Rance

Expedition role: Botanist, and master of plant lists! Brian has recently retired from the Department of Conservation, where he was a Technical Advisor for nearly four decades. He and his wife Chris Rance run the Southland Community Nursery and Education Centre and in 2015 received the Queen’s Service Medal for services to conservation.

Favourite plant: Pleurophyllum hookeri. One of the megaherbs that is so characteristic of the New Zealand subantarctic islands and unlike anything else in the mainland New Zealand flora. Dagger-like silver green leaves and a flowering head that stands up to 50cm or more tall. The flowerhead, missing the ray florets, is very unusual looking and mostly purple shades.

It grows in the uplands and alpine areas in amazing landscapes though is often restricted to rocky areas where it survives the worst ravages of pig browsing and rooting. It is hoped that once pigs are eradicated this and many other megaherbs will again form vast colourful landscapes on these windswept islands.

Favourite place:  Giants Archway. I have been fortunate to visit the Auckland Islands a number of times but have had limited opportunity to explore and camp up high. So on this trip our forays into the subalpine and alpine areas were a highlight.

We were fortunate to get to many amazing alpine areas including the Fleming Plateau, Tower of Babel, Omega Peak, Hooker Hills, Mt Eden, Mt Wilkes and others, all amazing landscapes and the rocky nature of them meant they were rich in plants that pigs were unable to access.

But at Giants Archway the combination of the flora, vegetation, geology, landscapes of the area and of course the spectacular arch make this area special to me. What made this place special was to get there and be amazed after the long and slow trudge up there through dense Chionochloa antarctica tussockland!

Of course the weather also helped on these inland trips and the views from up high were amazing, not always the case when the clag rolls in!

Simon Truebridge

Expedition role: Crew member and engineer on the MV Strannik, which he is still doing today. 

Favourite plant: I am the engineer on Strannik and as such my interest lies in mechanical things, rather than in plants. Having said that I enjoy the Auckland Islands a lot, it was not my first visit to the Auckland Islands, we were here a year ago with a film crew filming the southern right whales.

While I don’t have one particular plant that I can say is my favourite, I do really enjoy the mosaic of the vegetation at the Auckland Islands. From the green and red (when it is flowering) of the coastal rātā forest to the yellowy hues of the subalpine vegetation to the white of the extensive tussock lands and above those the dark/black volcanic rocks of the many peaks.  

Favourite place: My favourite place on the Auckland Islands, I am sure, others like me will be struggling to select just one place, there are so many amazing places.

Even in my role as Engineer I have managed to get ashore and see a lot of the Island and one among many of my favourite ones is Lake Hinemoa in Musgrave Inlet on the east coast of Auckland Island.

It is a glacial lake trapped in behind a massive terminal moraine dating from the last glacial advance of the glaciers that cut and shaped the island. The walk into the lake starts in the beautiful coastal rātā forest and climbs steadily through to the subalpine scrub on the ridge of the moraine where one gets a magnificent view out over the lake.  

Heidi Meudt

Expedition role: Botanist, with specialist knowledge in taxonomy. When she’s not daydreaming about returning to Motu Maha Auckland Islands, Heidi is a Botany Curator at Te Papa.

Favourite plant: Myosotis capitata, the endemic subantarctic forget-me-not. This was a tough call, but as forget-me-nots is one of my areas of expertise, I’ve gone for the obvious choice. I blogged about this species a few years ago when some of my Te Papa colleagues made collections of this species in Motu Maha Auckland Islands for my research, and it was such a thrill to see them on this trip for myself. It’s one of the few southern hemisphere forget-me-not species that has purple flowers.

Favourite place: The western cliffs of Auckland Island, where we were in botanical heaven seeing flowering megaherbs for the first time, hundreds of flowering Myosotis capitata, and many other stunning native plants, and had breathtaking views of Disappointment Island, all the while several light-mantled sooty albatrosses circled in the blue sky above us. It was truly one of the most magical days I have experienced in the field up to now, where I felt an overwhelming sense of joy, gratitude, awe and connection to this subantarctic wonderland.

A video of Heidi’s favourite Motu Maha Auckland Island place: Panoramic views of from the Western cliffs of Auckland Island, including Disappointment Island in the distance, and many flowering native plants. Video by Heidi Meudt. Te Papa

Fiona Thomson

Expedition role: Botanist/Ecologist, with specialist knowledge about non-native plants (aka weeds). Fiona has spent time as a researcher at Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research and now works for the Department of Conservation, where she is currently Weed Science Advisor.

Favourite plant: I admire tenacity and this plant had it in spades… Myrsine divaricata (weeping matipo). Found on mainland New Zealand, but it’s stronghold must be the Auckland Islands. Its divaricating branches after which its named (they branch at 90 degree angles) means it grows as a dense shrub.

On the island, the plants grow close together across the hillsides forming an almost impenetrable barrier to the mountain tops.

On the expedition, we crawled under it (dragging our packs behind us), walked on top of it (falling through the gaps and scrambling back out), but mostly we pushed through it while swearing like sailors.

Often you’d find yourself catapulted backwards like a human cannonball when trying to push through a particularly springy Myrsine section. I would not be surprised if the name, weeping matipo, isn’t based on it’s weeping form, but rather the feeling it induces when faced by a solid stand of it.

However, I like to think of Myrsine divaricata as the non-showy protective cloak of the island, which has acted as a barrier limiting humans from accessing the delicate mountain top ecosystems… and the best bit is that I can grow a wee bit of the Auckland Islands flora in my garden, and so can you!

Favourite place: I can’t possibly choose, so I’m going to say the whole of the Auckland Islands. A favourite moment was watching the sunrise while sitting on the “Giants Causeway” (on top of the Giants Archway). The picture says it all. Another favourite moment was on the zodiac boat going around the coastline for weed surveys with rock hopper penguins diving around us (no photo because I was hanging onto the boat!).

Chris Morse

Expedition role: Botanist and plant photographer extraordinaire. In real life, Chris is a Field Technician in Ecosystems & Conservation at Manaaki Whenua-Landcare Research.

Favourite plant: I considered the dozens of striking plants including the iconic megaherbs, numerous species of Hymenophyllum (filmy ferns) and some diminutive sub-shrubs, but settled on the native hebe, Veronica benthamii.  

Its large lilac-blue flowers are an indicative feature of much of the Auckland Island flora with vibrant pink and blue flowers common, particularly amongst the gentians, forget-me-nots and orchids. It provides a stark contrast to mainland New Zealand’s more discrete floral colour palate.

Chris Morse’s favourite plant: Veronica benthamii with large vivid lilac-blue flowers and soft, white hair-margined leaves. It forms a shrub typically growing up to 1m tall. 

Favourite place: Of all the many extraordinarily beautiful and dramatic places we visited my favourite is the Giants Archway. With its volcanic arching neck, enhanced by its reptilian-like outer shell, it has a gigantic, life-like Jurassic presence.

To the east, you look down the broad tussock ridge over Chapel Rock to Musgrave Inlet and Smith Harbour. The view to the west is up to the beautifully desolate moorland plateau of Bleak Hill. It is a place of extraordinary landscape and light. 

Chris Stowe

Expedition role: Botanist. Chris has his own ecological consulting company called Urtica Ecology (which is named after a plant! Urtica ferox is the ongaonga or stinging nettle).

Favourite plant: The southern rātā forest found around much of the coast of Auckland Island. While I have a love of all of New Zealand’s environments and ecosystems from the coast to the mountain tops, I think my spiritual home is the forest. And the rātā forest down on Auckland Island is just otherworldly. With its fantastically twisted stems and crazy architecture it is simply an amazingly visual and atmospheric place to be.

I made a musical track titled “When The Bell Tolls” which reflects my perception of the landscape and atmosphere of the place, and the stark and sometimes brutal, dystopian human history of the islands.

Favourite place: To name my favourite place was really difficult as there were so many highlights. The crazy plant community on Fleming Plateau was unique to my experience. The Giants Archway was a superb piece of natural architecture.

But I am just going to have to say my favourite place was the west coast in general, for its drama and spectacular cliffs where often the best examples of the megaherb fields were surviving out of reach of the pigs.

Steve Abley

Expedition role: Crew member on the MV Strannik. In real life Steve is CEO of Abley.

Favourite plant:  As one of the non-botanists my role was simple, happy bots, happy yacht.  The flora of the Auckland Islands was impressive with wind swept and generally inhospitable landscape and the vegetation had developed to suit that environment. 

Generally, most of the vegetation was small and hardy.  On the other hand, the vegetation on the yacht was for human nourishment so had to be voluminous, rich in energy and importantly, fresh. Therefore, my favourite plant was Brassica oleracea, or the common cooking cabbage. 

I learnt there are almost a million ways to cook cabbage and it has an impressive shelf live meaning that even after 4 weeks offshore, we were still eating fresh(ish). The common cabbage appears to me to be a generally under-appreciated vegetable, that is unless you’re far from a supermarket like we were. 

Favourite place: Hardwicke Settlement is difficult to forget. It makes for a great story of courage and endeavour but ultimately failure where mother nature succeeded above human ambition.

The settlement itself is now somewhat overtaken by nature but in its day must have been an impressive sight for many ship folk traveling between Australia and the home country or whalers seeking refuge. 

The enduring symbolism of Hardwicke for me is the grave of 3-month-old Isabel Younger and the headstone her father crafted from the grain milling stone. It was too difficult to grow grain at the Auckland Islands, so the milling stone was redundant – what better use then to repurpose it as a permanent symbol of wasted potential. May she rest in peace. 

Toni Atkinson

Expedition role: Mycologist, i.e. fungal specialist, which is also what she is in real life!

Favourite plant: The southern rātā tree (Metrosideros umbellata). I love the low umbrella-like canopies with their patterns of crown shyness against the sky, and ancient twisted trunks.  

Each tree is different and some will always surprise, and remain surprising, with their size, their shape, or their multi-trunked complexity. The simple pointy leaves frame the red flowers full of sweet nectar… which will later carpet the forest with red stamens.

This coastal rātā forest is usually relatively easy to move through, and my best fungi collecting places were the wet hollows made and used as wallows by both sea lions and pigs.

The most mycologically interesting decaying wood in these wallows is the dense dark twisted rātā, often lying on the surface of the mud for long enough for microfungal fruitbodies to develop.  A certain type of fungus – a particularly long-stalked ochre discomycete, to be precise – appears to grow only on the old leaf petioles and old flower capsules of the rātā; hard to see on the forest floor, these always felt good to find.

Favourite place: Sealer’s Creek in Tandy Inlet.  I was lucky enough to have three visits here, with others and also by myself, and I would have enjoyed more.  An hospitable landing on a small sandy beach by some flax plants, presumably planted by historic sealers, initially made this place special.

It is north-facing and surprisingly warm; I kept taking off layers of clothes. I was immersed for hours as there were lots of fungi.  I remember a deep pink Humidicutis in the stream bank, and an abundance of wood decay microfungi on the dark wet rātā wood along and near the stream bed.

On the morning of my second visit, while leaving the Strannik, I remember thinking that I’d like to find on the Auckland Islands the olive-green discomycete that I see only rarely on mainland New Zealand. I walked up the stream a little that day and there they were, a group of small olivaceous saucers on a rotting log in a bed of yellow-green moss.  At times I had five or six bellbirds singing around me, and I stopped to record their song, wishing I could give lessons to the ones at home, as the songs on Auckland Island have much more complexity.

To the west of the stream, the ground is dry and relatively flat and the rātā forest is very open. One can still see on this slight promontory into Tandy Inlet, the cut rātā trunks where the sealers made space for their camp.  It is easy to imagine camping here. 

I will leave you with a video of these incredible light-mantled sooty albatrosses – flying just over our heads: