The Pavlova Clause

There is, admittedly, one small geographical problem with this story.

This photograph was not taken in Australia.

It was taken offshore New Zealand.

We know.

Before anyone begins drafting a strongly worded email, we would like to invoke what will henceforth be known as the Pavlova Clause.

Australia and New Zealand have spent long enough arguing over who invented pavlova, claiming musicians, comparing accents and behaving generally like siblings who insist they have absolutely nothing in common while quietly borrowing each other’s things.

So, on a major technicality, we believe one New Zealand albatross may appear on This Strange Land.

Just this once.

Probably.

The truth is, this photograph means too much to leave out.

Seeing an albatross had been on the wish list for a long time. Not the casual sort of wish where you think, That would be nice one day.

The other sort.

The sort that eventually involves getting on a plane, travelling to another country, boarding a boat and heading out into open water because waiting for an albatross to wander past the kitchen window was proving surprisingly ineffective.

And then, out there on the water, it happened.

Among the smaller seabirds scattered across the ocean was something altogether more substantial.

An albatross.

You know they're big.

You've read that they're big.

People tell you they're big.

Then one stretches out its wings in front of you and your brain quietly goes:

Oh.

They meant BIG.

Around it, the smaller seabirds bobbed and fussed on the water while the albatross seemed to operate under an entirely different set of aerodynamic rules.

There was splashing. There were wings everywhere. Birds arrived, disappeared and reappeared. Everyone seemed to be conducting extremely important maritime business.

And somewhere in the middle of all of it was the bird we'd travelled all that way to see.

There are wildlife encounters you stumble across completely by accident.

Others require patience.

And occasionally one requires crossing the Tasman Sea because somebody really, really wanted to see an albatross.

Was it worth travelling to another country for?

Completely.

Does New Zealand technically fall outside our usual Australian patch?

Also yes.

But considering nobody has definitively settled the pavlova argument yet, we're keeping the photograph.

Photographed offshore New Zealand. Published under the Pavlova Clause.