Beautiful sooty albatrosses make keening cries as they soar in courtship flights around the forbidding cliffs. Night-landing petrels returning to their burrows in the tussocks create a cacophony as they greet their mates. Monstrous elephant seal males bellow and flub as they threaten each other on bouldery beaches. The big-eyed seal pups bleat for their blubbery mothers. Penguins squawk, marauding skuas scream, chicks peep and plump green parakeets chatter.

The Antipodes Islands are named because they are directly opposite London-and they couldn’t be more different than the English capital. There are no red busses, no black cabs, no people. Fogs are the most familiar phenomenon, but Antipodes are more intense and more frequent.

The storms of the furious forties drive huge swells to lash the cliffs, and gales and rain batter the huge tussocks. The wild weather adds to the symphony of strange noises.