Macquarie Island

Macquarie Island is a long, narrow, treeless ridge of green and gold in the Southern Ocean, about 1,500 km south-east of Tasmania and roughly halfway to Antarctica. It measures about 34 km from end to end and only about 5 km across at its widest, and it belongs to the Australian state of Tasmania. The people who work there call it Macca. There's no town and no tree anywhere on it.

What draws people is the ground and what lives on it. This is the only island in the world made entirely of ocean crust and rock from the Earth's mantle, shoved up from the seabed along a plate boundary. Around it, more than 750,000 pairs of royal penguins (a species found breeding nowhere else) come ashore each year, alongside king penguins, elephant seals and several kinds of albatross and petrel.

Hardly anyone lives here. In 2026 the only residents were 24 staff at an Australian research station on the narrow isthmus at the northern end, and the plan then was to bring them home. The rest of the human traffic is the occasional expedition ship.

Start with the ground, because it's the whole reason the island exists. Macquarie sits on the Macquarie Ridge, a mostly underwater chain of crests that runs south of New Zealand along the line where the Pacific and Indo-Australian plates meet. The island is the part that pokes above the surface. Its rocks began on the seafloor: pillow basalts (lava that cooled in rounded lumps underwater) and the deeper layers of crust and mantle that normally lie buried far below any ocean. Slow collision along the plate boundary squeezed them upwards, and the area is still seismically active. Published ages for the rocks differ between studies, so no number appears here.

Life arrived the usual way, by wind, water and wings. With no trees and no land mammals, the island grew tussock grass, boggy plateau and big-leaved plants called megaherbs, such as the Macquarie Island cabbage (Stilbocarpa polaris). At least 28 native vertebrates breed there, and two species, the royal penguin and the Macquarie Island shag, are found nowhere else.

People came late. Captain Frederick Hasselborough of the brig Perseverance sighted the island on 11 July 1810, on a sealing voyage out of Sydney, and named it for Lachlan Macquarie, the governor of New South Wales. The Australian Antarctic Division adds that Polynesians or other earlier visitors may have got there first, though nothing says they did. Hasselborough reported millions of penguins and around 250,000 seals. The sealers who followed were after oil and skins, and they were thorough.

The numbers are hard to read calmly. An estimated 200,000 to 400,000 fur seals lived on the island, and at least 120,000 were killed in the first 18 months of commercial sealing. The fur seals were almost wiped out within about a decade. Elephant seals, taken for their oil, had fallen by 70% by the mid-1840s. Then the hunters turned to penguins. After the king penguin colony at Lusitania Bay was devastated they moved on to royal penguins at a place called The Nuggets, and by 1905 the plant there could boil down 2,000 penguins at a time, each giving about half a litre of oil. The works closed in 1920, when the lease held by Joseph Hatch was cancelled.

Science got there next. In 1911 Douglas Mawson's Australasian Antarctic Expedition set up the island's first scientific station, with a wireless relay on Wireless Hill, which became the first radio link between Australia and Antarctica. Mawson's book records that five men landed in December 1911 and stayed almost two years. The Commonwealth Meteorological Service carried on the weather observations from 1913, until the relief ship Endeavour was lost with all aboard in 1914 and the observations stopped. The current station was founded on 21 March 1948 by the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions, and it has run ever since.

Protection came in steps. The island became a wildlife sanctuary in 1933, a Tasmanian nature reserve in 1978 and a World Heritage property in 1997. The first nomination, built mainly on the island's animals, didn't succeed. After the Committee deferred its decision in 1996 and asked for more comparison with other places, it agreed to the inscription at its meeting in Naples in December 1997. A Commonwealth marine park of 16.2 million hectares followed in 1999.

The hardest chapter was the animals people brought. Introduced predators and grazers wiped out two native bird species, stripped vegetation and set the soil moving. The fix was an eradication of rabbits, rats and mice together, which had not been done on an island this big: a project costing about A$25 million over seven years, in which a release of calicivirus and aerial baiting cut the rabbits, and hunters finished the job. A 12-person team with 11 hunting dogs spent 13 months combing six blocks of the island, and found eight adult rabbit survivors and a single litter. In 2013 rodent-detection dogs from New Zealand found no rats or mice. In April 2014 the project manager, Keith Springer, reported nothing seen for two and a half years. Nobody could realize the full effect on the land straight away, and ecologists said a new balance could take up to 20 years to settle. Tussock and megaherbs were already coming back, and blue petrels and Antarctic terns, once confined to offshore rock stacks, had begun breeding on the main island again.

Few places on Earth put so many animals in front of you at once. At Hurd Point, on the southern tip, operator accounts describe some 300,000 royal penguins spread over the slopes, and one writer called it penguins as far as the eye could see. At Lusitania Bay about 100,000 king penguins crowd a beach where rusting boilers still sit among them. On the sand at Sandy Bay, elephant seals about 4 m long and weighing around a tonne lie in heaps,.

The ground is a draw in its own right. Nearly everywhere else, ocean crust and mantle rock are buried beneath kilometres of water. Here, the Macquarie Ridge has lifted a piece of that hidden floor clear of the waves, and the pillow basalts, shaped over millions of years by the sea, are among its finest rocks. Standing on it is a strange feeling even for people who couldn't tell basalt from breeze block, and the ground is not finished moving: the island is still seismically active, because the plates beneath it keep grinding.

Macquarie also tells a story you can read in the landscape. The boilers at Lusitania Bay are what is left of an industry that boiled penguins into oil. The tussock and megaherbs creeping back over the slopes are the result of a project that removed rabbits, rats and mice, and the blue petrels and Antarctic terns now breeding on the main island are the reward. Few places show so plainly both what people can destroy and what they can repair, and the answer isn't tidy yet.

And then there's the sheer remoteness. The island sits at 54 degrees south, in the zone sailors call the furious fifties, where wind gusts of 185 km/h have been recorded. Visiting needs a permit and a ship, and the numbers allowed ashore are limited.

Macquarie lies at 54°38' south, 158°52' east. It is about 1,500 km south-east of Tasmania and about 1,300 km north of the Antarctic continent, roughly halfway between Tasmania or New Zealand and Antarctica. Its nicknames, Macca and the Green Sponge, describe it well: a spongy, boggy island. It's about 34 km long and about 5 km across at its widest, around 12,785 hectares of land, a long thin finger, roughly one and a half times the length of Tasmania's Freycinet Peninsula.

The land rises from a skirt of coastal tussock to a high plateau of golden grasses, where streams run between small lakes and bogs. More than 42 lakes are scattered across it. Higher still lies feldmark, a bare, gravelly terrace habitat of mosses, lichens and cushions of the endemic plant Azorella, bashed by the strongest winds. No trees grow anywhere. The research station stands on a low neck of land at the northern end, the isthmus, with Wireless Hill rising behind it.

The weather decides everything. The wind averages about 25 km/h through the year and has gusted to 185 km/h at sea level, and the plateau is windier still. The center of the island, the plateau, takes the worst of it.

Two sets of lines are drawn on the map. The nature reserve covers the island, the outlying islets (Judge and Clerk, and Bishop and Clerk) and the water out to three nautical miles. The World Heritage area is bigger, taking in the whole reserve and Australian waters out to 12 nautical miles, which is why the listed area is so much larger than the island.

Be ready for weather first and wildlife second. The wind on Macquarie averages about 25 km/h all year and has gusted to 185 km/h, so a waterproof shell, windproof layers, gloves and a hat that stays on matter more than anything else you pack. Operator accounts from the summer season describe overcast mornings and, once, snowflakes falling at dinner. As at any exposed landing, the sea has the last word on whether you get ashore at all.

A visit is a series of hours rather than days. One operator's account describes a morning ashore at Sandy Bay, photographing king and royal penguins and elephant seals, then back to the ship for lunch. In the afternoon the ship sailed down the east coast, passing colonies on the way to Hurd Point at the southern tip. Evenings were talks and dinner aboard. The writer called it surreal, and noted that the animals were curious about the visitors, not afraid of them.

The crowd, in a sense, is the penguins. The island's own description is roughly one seabird or seal per square metre, though that is a figure of speech and not a census. Expect noise and the smell that goes with many thousands of birds and seals. Most of the color comes from the tussock turning the plateau gold, because everything else (sea, sky, shingle) tends to be grey.

As far as we could tell there's nowhere ashore to buy a drink or shelter from the wind. The research station is a workplace, not a visitor stop. The nearest café is about 1,500 km away in Tasmania, so eat before you land. Operator accounts show short stays on the beach rather than long walks. Pack boots and clothing you can scrub clean: the island has been free of rats, mice and rabbits since 2014, and biosecurity is taken seriously.

Plan on one or two days at the island itself, and a much longer voyage around it. The Australian Antarctic Division describes two ways to go. The first is a stopover of a day or two on a voyage of three weeks or more, bound from Hobart or the south of New Zealand to East Antarctica. The second is a shorter voyage of about two weeks that visits Macquarie with New Zealand's subantarctic islands, such as Campbell Island and the Auckland Islands, usually with a bird-watching focus. Its guidance on tourism was last updated in 2006, so check the details with the operator.

Every visit needs a Tasmanian permit, and Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service sets limits on visitors per season and on how many are ashore at one time. Ask your operator who holds the permit and what happens if landings are called off.

Summer is the season. Operator accounts we found describe visits in November, December, January and February, and rangers manage educational tourism visits during the summer months.

Bird flu adds a real question mark for 2026 and 2027. On 28 August 2026 the Australian Government announced it was withdrawing the station's 24 staff because of the risk of an H5 outbreak, though the virus had not been detected on the island. Ask your operator how that affects landings, and ask early.

There's no regular way to reach Macquarie Island. We found no flights and no scheduled boats, and the sources describe tourist access only by ship. The island sits about 1,500 km south-east of Tasmania, so every visit is a sea voyage, and the island is usually one stop on a longer trip.

Ships that visit leave from Hobart, in Tasmania, or from New Zealand's South Island. They come in two kinds. Some are long expeditions towards East Antarctica, often the Ross Sea, that call at Macquarie for one or two days along the way. Others are shorter subantarctic voyages of about two weeks that link Macquarie with Campbell Island and the Auckland Islands. Either way, you travel as a passenger on an expedition vessel with an operator that holds the Tasmanian permit.

Typical sailing times, fares and the list of approved operators: Could not be confirmed at the time of writing.

The approach is part of the experience. Macquarie sits at 54 degrees south, in what sailors call the furious fifties, and the Southern Ocean doesn't care about your itinerary. A stopover is a day or two inside a voyage of three weeks or more, so most of your time is spent at sea. The shorter destination voyages of about two weeks give Macquarie more of the schedule, and tend to be built around birds.

Landings are limited, and as far as operator accounts show, the beach at Sandy Bay is the usual place. Other sights, such as Lusitania Bay and Hurd Point, are seen from the water. The research station is a working base and doesn't accept casual visitors.

For the supply of the station itself, the Australian Antarctic Division's icebreaking research and supply vessel, RSV Nuyina, is used. It is not a passenger service. In 2026 it was due to collect the station's staff in late September or early October, which shows how much the timing of ships can shift with events. Travel to the island may be affected by bird flu precautions, so confirm everything with the operator before you commit.

Entry rules depend on your nationality and on the port you sail from, so check the official Australian and New Zealand government immigration sites for your own situation. Weather can delay or cancel a landing.

No one lives on Macquarie Island permanently. The only residents are the people who work there on tours of duty, and in 2026 that meant 24 expeditioners. They are scientists, tradespeople and support staff at the Australian Antarctic Division's research station on the northern isthmus, which has run continuously since 1948 and is the longest-running Australian station in the subantarctic or Antarctica.

Several agencies share it. Bureau of Meteorology staff have kept weather records since the station began. The station helps monitor carbon dioxide and ozone, and ARPANSA, the Australian radiation protection agency, runs year-round monitoring to help detect nuclear explosions under the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service has managed the nature reserve day to day since the early 1970s, and it keeps two rangers on the island at a time, generally for 12 months. The rangers also organize the educational tourism visits during the summer months.

The island has no Indigenous community that we could find a record of. The Australian Antarctic Division says Polynesians or other earlier visitors may have reached it before 1810, but nothing documents it. Human history here begins with the sealers, the penguin-oil workers and then Mawson's party, whose wireless operators worked in a hut on Wireless Hill.

Daily life is practical and quiet. The station community depends on a ship for supplies, and the staff live alongside a colony of about 2,500 elephant seals beside the base, according to ABC News.

The station's future is under discussion. About $370 million over nine years has been set aside to replace buildings at risk from ocean inundation and landslips, and the government says the decision to rebuild stands, though the 2026 withdrawal will slow it.

Frederick Hasselborough, who found the island, didn't live to enjoy the fame. Later in 1810 he went on to Campbell Island, and on 4 November he drowned there when his boat capsized, according to the accounts available.

Then there's the radio. Mawson's party couldn't talk to Hobart directly from Antarctica, so Macquarie was meant to relay the messages. At first the operators on Wireless Hill had no way of knowing whether they could hear anyone, or whether anyone could hear them. They could only transmit, wait and hope. A favorite detail is the engine house: Charles Sandell built it well away from the operating hut so that the noise of the generator wouldn't drown the faint signals Arthur Sawyer was listening for. They reached a ship in February 1912 and Suva, in Fiji, in March.

Daily life for Ainsworth's five-man party had its own details. They lived in a hut they called the Shack, collected rainwater in a tank salvaged from the wrecked sealing schooner Clyde, and ate mutton from sheep landed for the purpose at their first Christmas dinner. Wekas, flightless birds that people had introduced, shared the island with skuas and giant petrels, according to Mawson's book.

The penguin-oil boilers are still there. Some stand rusting at Lusitania Bay among the king penguins, which number about 100,000 today. It's an odd bit of reversal that the machinery built to boil the colony down is now part of the scenery the penguins walk past.

And one more: Mawson himself is reported to have called the island one of the 'wonder spots of the world', a line the island's conservation foundation still quotes.

There is no town on the island. The nearest settled places are a long way off. Tasmania lies about 1,500 km to the north-west, and visiting ships sail from Hobart or from the south of New Zealand's South Island. Antarctica is about 1,300 km to the south.

The island itself is a long finger running roughly north to south. The research station and Wireless Hill occupy the isthmus at the northern end, where the land narrows to a neck. Operator accounts describe sailing down the east coast, past penguin colonies, to Hurd Point at the southern tip. The plateau fills the island's middle, with bogs and more than 42 lakes.

Two groups of small outlying islets, Judge and Clerk and Bishop and Clerk, also belong to the reserve.

Across the Southern Ocean lie New Zealand's subantarctic islands, Campbell Island and the Auckland Islands, which expedition ships often combine with Macquarie on a single trip. Together they form a separate World Heritage property.