I've called the Chatham Islands (affectionately called the 'Chathams') for 10 years. As i said in an earlier post, i have temporarily relocated to my home town of Haast, to help my mother who has cancer. I decided i needed to return home to the Chathams for a few days, to collect some belongings i needed, and check on things out there. I booked my tickets and then readied myself for a trip home. The night before i left, i was getting excited. I hadn't returned home for 2 months, and i was craving a fix.
My mother was going to stay with friends in Westport while i was away. We drove up there the day before, and the next morning i arrived at the tiny Westport Airport, ready for my flight. The terminal was tiny. I checked in and made sure i had a good seat. The weather was fine here, but the forcast for Wellington wasn't brilliant. We took off and made our way over the ranges on our 55 minute flight. We had a slightly bumpy landing, but nothing major.
There are only two ways to access the Chathams, a two day boat trip, or a two and a half hour flight on a vintage 1950s aircraft. Air Chathams are the only airline to operate the NZ - Chathams route. They operate a few modified Convair 580s and run scheduled services to the mainland several times a week. Air Chathams also own a subsady called Air Chathams Pacific operating flights in Tonga with a DC3, a Metroliner, an Islander and more 580s. Air Chathams havnt been the only ones to operate to the Chatham Islands. In the past, DC3s, Argosys, Bristol Freighters, Hawker Siddely 748s, Cessnas, Metroliners, Beechcrafts, ATRs and Convairs have all operated in Chathams skys.
I arrived at the gate well before the departure time of 1pm. I checked in via the Air New Zealand desk, and was handed an Air NZ boarding pass. It had "CHATHAM ISLAND" on the destination. We boarded the plane at gate 7, 15mins before takeoff. Inside the plane was slowly filling up. I had a window seat looking out over the wing. Finnaly the doors were shut and the 25-30 passengers on board prepared for takeoff. A lovely older lady came out and did the safety briefing. I glanced over at the munty life rafts fastened against the rear wall. Our whole trip was pretty much over ocean. I am a wee bit of a nervous flying over water type flyer. Ive never flown internationally, so flying to and from the Chathams was the closest I had come to an international flight. The pilots fired up the engines. They were LOUD. And I mean, struggle to hear yourself think loud. We taxied out to the runway and took off to the South. The weather was a wee bit breezy and overcast, but nothing to worry about in a plane of this size. We circled round and Passed over Lake Ferry before turning for the long haul out to sea. The FA came around offering Tea and Coffee when we reached our cruising altitude of 24.000ft. Out the window light clouds bobbed far below, looking like awful smudges against a clear sea. A one way ticket to the Chathams will set you back over $500, so its not a trip for joyriders. I could hardly hear the FA over the sound of the mighty allison engines when she offered me a biscuit. I accepted and continued to gaze out the window while munching on it. In what seemed a very quick amount of time, the light fluffy clouds thickened and became very dark. For this moment in time, we were flying above this storm, but sooner or later we had to descend. 10 minutes later we began our descent to 6.000ft. As soon as we dropped below the clouds, rain began streaming against my window and our plane was being thrown around by strong winds. The lovely FA came around offering paper bags. I gratefully accepted mine, as I was feeling rather green. A lot of people were puking and the smell of it alone nearly made me puke. Luckily I managed to keep it down as we descended even further. Out the window I could only just make out the sea, full of angry white caps. Suddenly land slipped below us and the fog began to thicken. We circeled round the airport 3 times before landing on the small runway. We taxied to the small little terminal and waited what seemed to be ages for the engines to be shut down. Outside it was foggy and raining heavily. We departed the plane and made our way over to the terminal where several cups of complimentry coffee were placed on a trestle table. The baggage was unloaded in no time at all. In the terminal, i met my mate, who'd brought my car up to the airport. We drove off down the gravel road, me just enjoying being home. I dropped my mate off at his house, and then i went down to my house which overlooks Waitangi Bay. It was horrible weather here. My house is really a one bedroom cottage with a rusty old caravan to keep stuff in, i can't fit in the house. I unlocked the door, and instantly, a musty smell hit me. The house had been locked up for a few months and needed a good airing. I turned the power on, and turned on some lights. My cottage maybe a bit dilapidated, but i've SKY TV and high speed broadband to wither away the long winter nights. I looked down at my watch, i'd forgotten to move it 45 minutes ahead. The Chatham Islands, thanks to a curve in the dateline, in 45minutes ahead of NZ time. I went into the bathroom, a dead rat was rotting into the Lino, disgusting!!!. I got a shovel out of the caravan a threw it outside. The next morning i drove downtown, in reality to the Chathams largest settlement, Waitangi. Waitangi is the hub of the Chathams. Home to as Hotel, motel, the wharves, a general store, hardware store, liquer shop, petrol station, race course, council offices, hospital, fire and police station and a few fish factories. The weather had cleared overnight, pathing the way for a nice day. I went into the General Store and stocked up on a few grocerys. Food on the Chathams is expensive. A 2 litre bottle of milk will set you back $9. So it's not cheap to live out here.
The Chathams are a huddle of 10 islands, 2 of which are inhabited, Chatham, and smaller Pitt Island. The islands indigenous people are the Moriori. The Moriori are culturally Polynesian. They developed a distinct Moriori culture in the Chatham Islands as they adapted to local conditions. Although speculation once suggested that they settled the Chatham Islands directly from the tropical Polynesian islands, or even that they were Melanesian in origin, current research indicates that ancestral Moriori were Māori Polynesians who emigrated to the Chatham Islands from New Zealand before 1500. Evidence supporting this theory comes from the characteristics that the Moriori language has in common with the dialect of Māori spoken by the Ngāi Tahu tribe of the South Island, and comparisons of the genealogies of Moriori ("hokopapa") and Māori ("whakapapa"). Prevailing wind patterns in the southern Pacific add to the speculation that the Chatham Islands were the last part of the Pacific to be settled during the period of Polynesian discovery and colonisation. The word Moriori derives from Proto-Polynesian *ma(a)qoli, which has the reconstructed meaning "true, real, genuine". It is cognate with the Maori language word Māori and likely also had the meaning "(ordinary) people". The earliest indication of human occupation of the Chathams, inferred from middens exposed due to erosion of sand dunes, has been established as 450 years. The Chathams are colder and less hospitable than the land the original settlers had left behind, and although abundant in resources, these were different from those available where they had come from. The Chathams proved unsuitable for the cultivation of most crops known to Polynesians, and the Moriori adopted a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Food was almost entirely marine-sourced - protein and fat from fish, fur seals and the fatty young of sea birds. The islands supported about 2000 people.
More later, got another flight to catch
