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Must See Guide

Heard Island and McDonald Islands

Australia's only active volcanoes, rising from the stormy Southern Ocean in one of the least disturbed island wildernesses on Earth.

Best time to go
November to March, the only months when expedition ships attempt the voyage
Currency
Australian Dollar (AUD)
Reading time
4 min
Language
English

Heard Island and the McDonald Islands are an Australian external territory in the southern Indian Ocean, about 4,000 kilometres south-west of Perth and roughly 1,700 kilometres north of Antarctica. They are the only sub-Antarctic islands with active volcanoes, and among the few in the world where no introduced species have taken hold. Heard Island is dominated by the glaciated mass of Big Ben; the McDonald Islands, about 40 kilometres to the west, are a small, steep, volcanically active group that has grown markedly through eruptions since the 1990s.

Nobody lives here, and there is no regular way to visit. The islands are a strictly managed reserve, and in 1997 UNESCO inscribed them on the World Heritage List for their geology and their intact ecosystems. Any landing requires a permit from the Australian Antarctic Division, granted only for research, management or carefully assessed expeditions. Tourism, when it happens, means a handful of specialist expedition voyages every few years, with no guarantee of going ashore.

The top 3 in Heard Island and McDonald Islands

  1. 1

    Atlas Cove

    On the north-west of Heard Island, Atlas Cove was the site of the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions (ANARE) station from 1947 to 1955, one of Australia's first steps into sub-Antarctic science. Remains of huts and equipment still lie near the black sand beach, alongside nineteenth-century relics of the sealers who came for elephant seal oil and sometimes lived here for months. Elephant seals, fur seals and king penguins crowd the shoreline, and the Laurens Peninsula rises behind.

    TipHistoric sites are protected; nothing may be moved or taken, and approaching wildlife is regulated by the permit conditions.

  2. 2

    Big Ben and Mawson Peak

    Big Ben is the huge, ice-covered volcano that makes up most of Heard Island, and its summit, Mawson Peak, reaches about 2,745 metres, making it the highest mountain on Australian territory outside the Antarctic claim, higher than Mount Kosciuszko. Lava flows and steam plumes have been observed in recent decades, sometimes detected only by satellite. Glaciers spill from its flanks down to the sea, though they have retreated noticeably since the mid-twentieth century. The summit has been climbed only a handful of times, by small, determined mountaineering expeditions.

  3. 3

    McDonald Islands

    The McDonald Islands are small, sheer and almost inaccessible, with few recorded landings in history. After a long period of quiet, volcanic activity resumed in the 1990s, and eruptions have joined McDonald Island and nearby Flat Island and roughly doubled its area. Viewed from a ship, the steep cliffs, steam and swarms of seabirds give a rare picture of an island still being built.

Getting there

There are no flights and no airstrip. The voyage from Fremantle or Hobart takes well over a week each way across the Southern Ocean, which is why visits are so rare. Australian government research voyages call occasionally, and private expedition ships have very occasionally included the islands on long voyages, sometimes combined with Kerguelen in the French Southern Territories. Anyone planning a private expedition, including yachts, must apply to the Australian Antarctic Division well in advance, submit an environmental assessment and carry an observer if required.

When to go

Expedition voyages run only in the southern summer, roughly November to March. Even then the weather is wet, cold and extremely windy, and landing conditions are poor more often than not.

Getting around

Ashore, movement is on foot over beaches, moraine and glacier edges, and only within areas defined by the permit. Some zones are closed altogether to protect wildlife and fragile vegetation. Small boats are used to land at the few accessible beaches, mainly on the northern coasts.

Local tips

  • Biosecurity is paramount. Because there are no introduced species, all clothing and equipment must be thoroughly cleaned and inspected before landing.
  • Expect to see it from the sea. Many voyages never get ashore; views of Big Ben, if the cloud clears, are the main prize.
  • Respect closed areas. Seabird colonies and seal breeding beaches can be off-limits.
  • Prepare for isolation. Medical evacuation is effectively impossible for days.

Wildlife and wilderness

Heard Island supports vast numbers of seabirds and seals: king, macaroni, gentoo and rockhopper penguins, several kinds of albatross and petrel, and big populations of elephant and fur seals. Fur seals were hunted almost to extinction here in the nineteenth century and have since made a remarkable recovery. The Heard Island cormorant and a local subspecies of sheathbill live nowhere else. The surrounding marine reserve, one of the largest in the world, protects feeding grounds for many of these species and is closely linked to sustainable fisheries management in the Southern Ocean.

Science and management

The Australian Antarctic Division manages the territory under a management plan that zones the islands and surrounding marine reserve, sets rules for access, and limits what visitors can do ashore. Scientists come to study glacier retreat, volcanic activity, seabird and seal populations, and how plants colonise newly exposed ground as the ice withdraws. Because there are no introduced species, the islands act as a natural baseline against which change elsewhere in the sub-Antarctic can be measured. Much of the monitoring now relies on satellites, automated cameras and occasional research voyages rather than people on the ground, which helps keep disturbance to a minimum.

A short history

Heard Island was sighted by the American sealer Captain John Heard in 1853, and the McDonald Islands by Captain William McDonald a year later. Sealers arrived within a few years, and for decades they killed elephant seals for oil, leaving try-pots and hut remains still visible today. Britain transferred the islands to Australia in 1947, the year the ANARE station opened at Atlas Cove. Since then, the territory has been managed almost entirely for science and conservation.