Volunteer builders who restore historic buildings for the Department of Conservation in the Auckland Islands.
Volunteer builders who restore historic buildings for the Department of Conservation in the Auckland Islands.
I spent last week in the Auckland Islands, where only a few people get to go.
DOC, the Navy and universities send people down a few times a year, while a few specialist technicians preform tasks such as eradicating pests, or fixing-up heritage buildings.
Common mortals seeking a sub-Antarctic adventure must shell-out for a ticket aboard one of the few eco-tourist boats which ply the Southern Ocean.
A basic berth, on the shortest cruise I could find this week, cost between $6000 and $7000. It was for eight days, taking in Auckland, Campbell and Snares Islands. You'd spend maybe another $1000 to reach the embarkation/return point, the Port of Bluff.
Image 1 of 10: Paul Charman at Tagua Bay, one of many passengers to enjoy the Auckland Islands.
The few voyages over summer are in ice breakers, or ships built for big seas. You risk sea sickness, falls while jumping in and out of Zodiacs and the possibility that your precious time ashore gets cancelled through bad weather.
DOC limits visitor numbers, restricts landing sites and charges each passenger $400 landing fee. For that, it sends along somebody to tell you how to scrub gumboots when going ashore, and provide additional useful information, such as how to face-down sea lions.
You'll purchase cheaper, longer, more comfortable cruises to equally exotic destinations all over the world. So why sacrifice to see New Zealand's southern islands?
Well, I'd say because they're unique, having barely changed in 10,000 years. Because landscapes will delight you. Unique wildlife and plants abound and shipmates are generally high calibre. As for the vibe . . . Down there, I feel like a character in one of the fantasy or science fiction stories I read as a youth.
You had to be there
In the 1970s, the library at Spotswood College, New Plymouth, bulged with science fiction books and authors invented stories about life they imagined existed on then largely unexplored planets in our solar system.
These were filled with exotic other-worldly jungles, mountains and bug-eyed monsters. No wonder then, to me the misty heights and great rock faces of Adams and Auckland Islands resemble planets described by Robert A. Heinlein.
Sinister southern rata forest could have been invented by J.R.R. Tolkien and Enderby Island's colourful sub-Antarctic mega herbs, perhaps by C.S. Lewis.
As for the big-eyed monsters, they're everywhere down there, called sea lions!
The strange scenery also looks like worlds invented by writer Andre Norton, whose 1970s science fiction stories were pinched for James Cameron's Avatar movies.
(James, all can be forgiven. Just take an eco-tourist voyage, witnesses the wondrous scenery and persuade DOC to let you film the next Avatar down south).
But speaking of flights of fancy - I didn't have a starship to explore these strange worlds in, but maybe the next best thing.
HMNZS Wellington is one of the Navy's Protector class off-shore patrol vessels, boasting two powerful 5400 kw engines which push the 1600 vessel up to 22 knots, even through the monstrous swells of the Southern Ocean.
A couple of weeks ago this impressive ship took a me and about 20 other passengers to the Auckland Islands: DoC staff, volunteer builders who repaired the coastwatchers' base at Ranui Cove and teams studying the habits of the pests on the main island, pigs and cats.
Passengers gathered on the bridge, where scenarios reminiscent of Star Trek (as in the Enterprise coming upon alien craft) got played over-and-over.
The "aliens" were big squid boats and trawlers, whom - in a very friendly and professional way - the Navy hailed and checked up on, ensuring they were operating in the area expected.
Seamanship impressive
There weren't tractor beams or Klingons, but it was clear to see that the New Zealand Navy is diligent in keeping an eye on our economic zone. As far as I know, no fishing boats were boarded during our voyage. But at one point, while I was going ashore in a Zodiac, DOC staff hailed a trawler crew sheltering in Perseverance Harbour.
The skipper received a friendly reminder that "a clean bottom" was required 1000 metres from shore.
Conversation was low key, but clearly a speeding Zodiac, driven by Navy crew in black suits and balaclavas, can put the fear of God into fishers.
This is something for us to be proud of in my view.
A hungry world is sending ever more fishing fleets into the Southern Ocean, but though Australia, South Africa, France the UK and even Norway own sub-Antarctic Islands, none seem to monitor southern economic fishing zones the way our Navy does.
Remember, in this era of people smuggling the Aussies probably have more pressing matters underway to their north.
Meanwhile, the professional demeanour of the young crew aboard the Wellington, many of them recruits in training, also impressed us passengers.
Most days they took the passengers ashore in Zodiacs and smaller rigid-hulled inflatable boats (IRBs). Our daily routine involved being seated in a Zodiac, then winched over the side by a crane. This craft would crash through the swells till it reached a smaller IRB closer to shore, which would take us ashore.
Seamanship of both boat driver and coxswain got us ashore without mishap, sometimes in difficult conditions. Young sailors mucked in, passing from one to another all the stuff required to repair the old coastwatchers base at Ranui Cove. These energetic "bucket brigades" were fairly constant, involving passing stuff hand-to-hand in a long line, including lengths of timber, tools, machinery, fuel, food and tents for our five builder.
At Ranui Cove we "bucketed" six tonnes of stuff, including 1.5 tonnes of cement. Not bad considering these loads were transmitted to their destination without the assistance of boat landings, then up-hill and in between trees.
Our building team, led by DOC manager Kathryn Pemberton, astonished us by getting stuck-in as soon as they'd landed. Those lads re-roofed the main hutt in 12 hours.
Messrs Jon Patrick, Andrew Scott, Jan Vaessen, Doug Kent and Greg Clark worked sunrise-to-sunset over seven days, leaving a 70-year old building with better piles than it had when new.
Bellowing mothers
The builders were quickly favourites of playful seal pups who clambered under the building to hang out with their new human friends.
Tricky moments followed, as bellowing mothers (sometimes close to half a tonne) would return from fishing expeditions at day's end to claim back their youngsters.
The builders, who also got opportunities to down tools and look around, seemed just as "sub-Antarctic" struck as me.
Former Napier art gallery owner Jan Vaessen spoke of constantly approaching wildlife with no fear of man, not only the seals but tui, bell birds and tomtits, even monstrous crabs in the shallows scuttled right up to the men.
"This place is unlike anywhere I've seen; It's like the land time forgot. I've seen a lot of the world but nothing quite like it. I'm doing as good a job as I can (repairing the heritage buildings) because my wish is, if at all possible, to be selected to return one day."
Their build was interrupted briefly by the Anzac service, held at Ranui Base, and later we visited another coastwatchers' base in Tagua Bay and remnants of the 1840s Hardwicke settlement.
Image 1 of 10: Paul Charman at Tagua Bay, one of many passengers to enjoy the Auckland Islands.
