Out-of-this-world adventures await on New Zealand’s wild and remote Subantarctic Islands with pioneering small-ship expedition cruise company Heritage Expeditions, recently named in Condé Nast Traveler’s influential ‘The 25 Best Places to Go in 2025’ list.
It feels like we’ve stepped onto the set of a 70s sci-fi movie as we pass the nodding golden cylinders of Bulbinella rossii and dusty pink cauliflowered spheres of Anisotome as waves crash on rocks far below. The first stop on Christchurch-based family-owned and -operated pioneering expedition cruise company Heritage Expeditions Subantarctic Galapagos of the Southern Ocean voyage, Campbell Island is now a conservation cornerstone of New Zealand’s Subantarctic Islands.
Remote, rugged and Unesco World Heritage-listed, these islands are internationally renowned wildlife havens and just an expedition cruise away. Nesting albatross, New Zealand/Hooker’s sea lion pups, elephant seals, thousands of penguins, and super-sized alien flowers combine to offer an experience straight out of a David Attenborough documentary, and an escape so complete we feel like we are not only in another country, but on another planet.
… an escape so complete we feel like we are not only in another country, but on another planet.
Highlights while exploring Campbell Island sees us wading waist-deep through fields of gigantic, otherworldly blooms known as ‘megaherbs’ and described by botanist Sir Joseph Hooker as a “floral display second to none outside the tropics” and spending an afternoon at the southern royal albatross colony observing nesting couples affectionately grooming, rowdy juveniles engaged in the raucous dating game of ‘gamming’, and the landing and take-off chaos of a busy airport.
While no landings are allowed at The Snares, a Zodiac cruise of this imposing clutch of inhospitable ancient, fractured granite islands, home to more nesting seabirds than all the British Isles, including some 60,000 endemic Snares Crested Penguins, is an unforgettable experience. Watching the antics of thousands of plucky, and often clumsy, snares crested penguins navigate the treacherously steep thoroughfare known as the ‘penguin slide’ is endlessly fascinating – and filled with some seriously comical moments.
A treasure trove of adventure awaits on the Auckland Islands Enderby Island where nationally the endangered yellow-eyed penguin/hoiho flourish, and we enjoy front row seats watching life and near-death play out at a New Zealand/Hooker’s sea lion breeding colony on Sandy Bay – complete with new-born pups. Exploring flame-tipped rata forests, we marvel at UFO-shaped clouds, on neighbouring namesake Auckland Island, a 200-metre hike up Southwest Cape offers incredible views both down Carnley Harbour and over the flurry of avian activity at the white-capped albatross colony below.
When it comes to wildlife encounters, Macquarie Island takes some beating. Heaving with elephant seals and penguins, Macquarie Island is the pavlova of the Subantarctics, with Australia staking its claim on this geographically New Zealand island too. The only place in the world where royal penguins breed, their raucous flipper-to-flipper ‘Penguin City’ is an action-packed multi-sensory experience, while it’s standing room only for the hundreds of thousands of regal king penguins nesting defiantly around the ruins of Joseph Hatch’s animal oil extracting digesters, which decimated the local elephant seal and penguin populations, as we Zodiac cruise the shoreline surrounded by rafts of inquisitive penguins. The wildlife here is fearless and penguins waddle up and give you a cheeky peck, cute and inquisitive elephant seal pups (weaners) caterpillar over to investigate, while out on the water king penguins try and catch a ride in our Zodiac – only in the Subantarctic Islands.
