We’d had a rough night in more way than one and this is the view that greeted us out of our porthole this morning
We made it to Salisbury Plains this Thursday afternoon to give us some fresh air but the conditions changed for the worse and only some of the passengers managed to get off the boat for a short time.
From the boat we can see a mass of wildlife waiting for us on the beach.
There’s some massive penguin colonies on the shore with lots of babies in amongst the green hills.
Friday was a whole new day. We landed early and it was a beautiful blue sky. Being on Salisbury Plains you feel like a kid in a candy store. You arrive surrounded by wildlife. You have to take a breath and try to focus.
John started with some video on the beach. The penguins found this most fascinating and came over to check out the rig.
I started with a few penguins just off the beach and some seals before I made the climb up the hill to get an overview of the colony. It was a steep slippery climb up with lots of other people fighting for a prime position.
Of course the time my UV filter with lens cap attached decided to unwind from my lens and fall off was when I’m over the most wet, muddy penguin poo you can see. That’s going to take a while to get clean again but on the positive side I did hear it fall and found it rather than losing it forever. Just means I need to be extra careful with this lens until I get back and clean everything.
Once up the top it was so packed with people there wasn’t much room so I sat down and took a few pics of one of the penguins that took and interest and decided to follow me around a fair bit.
Heading back down was far easier, granted I mainly slid down on my bum and cleared a nice path for everyone behind me.
Headed back towards the beach to find a lonely colony that wasn’t surrounded by other people. Walked for ages and found one that was alone, on the ice and was a bit of a dip to keep me out of the wind.
These guys are funny to watch. After they flop on they bellies they use their beaks to get back up.
We headed back to the water line to get some penguins near the water’s edge.
I’d hoped to stay out all day rather than come back for lunch and back at 3 but as it drew close to 1pm and the last boats were going back I decided I needed to go back as my hands were sol cold I couldn’t feel my finger to press the button on the camera.
I made a good choice as the weather changed suddenly and it started to snow and soon enough everyone else was back on board.
After getting down low to get some nice photos I am absolutely covered in penguin poo. Getting back on and going through the bio dip was fun as they hosed me down to get most of the muck off.
We took a stack of photos and hard a hard time picking out a few for tonight’s critique session.