Best things to do in the Chatham Islands: great seafood, friendly locals and music

Reporter·NZ Herald·

10 Jun, 2024 07:00 PM8 mins to read

Wild, rugged and filled with friendly locals and scrumptious seafood, the Chatham Islands are a worthy bucket-list destination for Kiwis. Photo / Juliette Silversten

Scrumptious seafood, friendly locals, fascinating history and no locked doors. Visiting the Chatham Islands can be like going back in time to a New Zealand way of life from 40 years ago, Ben Leahy finds.

John Savage has already downed a plate of crayfish, now he’s back for seconds.

“They don’t come this big back home - not any more,” he says, scooping meat straight from the shell.

He’s not the only one salivating. Most on our tour group tell me they had long ago pencilled the Chatham Islands onto their travel bucket list because of its scrumptious seafood.

Here, big pāua and kina can still be collected from the archipelago’s rocky shorelines, 900km east of Christchurch.

That hasn’t been possible in many parts of mainland New Zealand for decades.

In fact, a visit to Rēkohu /Chathams feels a lot like time-travelling to a New Zealand way of life from 30 or 40 years ago.

You’ll find locals larger-than-life, doors never locked, non-existent traffic, and wild landscapes.

“It’s beautiful, it’s rugged, it’s raw,” Lesley Whyte from Hotel Chathams Tours says about why she brings visitors to the windswept islands, rich in albatross, seals and great white sharks.

But perhaps most moving is the islands’ heritage.

Tourist John Savage dives in for seconds during a Chatham Islands tour filled with scrumptious seafood lunches and dinners. Photo / Ben Leahy

That includes the story of how Rēkohu’s Moriori original inhabitants are reinvigorating their culture after an 1800s genocide that is one of New Zealand’s most horrific and least told histories.

So why not work up an appetite and discover the best things to do in the Chathams – as well as why you might find it more fun being part of a tour.

Reel ‘em in on a fishing charter

Chatham Islands’ albatross escort our charter boat as it leaves Waitangi, the islands’ biggest town with 200 people.

We’ve boarded skipper Floyd Prendeville and son Cody’s fishing boat, but visitors can choose from a range of charter vessels.

The albatross zig-zag behind us. Now and then, they catch a wind gust and dive past, skimming centimetres off the ocean.

As we cut the motor and drop our lines, up to 18 of the grand birds – all of whom hatch their young on just one rocky outcrop known as the Pyramid – settle around us.

My compassionate-minded wife Erika doesn’t like fishing but decides to give it a go.

Almost immediately, she’s hauling the hand line in, bringing up her first blue cod with squeals of equal surprise and distaste.

Tourist Erika Motoie Leahy couldn't stop hooking fish during an action packed fishing charter. Photo / Ben Leahy

Then another blue cod. And another. And another.

At one point, we catch fish at the same time. Skipper Prendeville clears the cod from Erika’s hook and rebaits it.

But before he’s rebaited my hook, Erika is already hauling in her next fish.

In all, she catches 14 blue cod on her first ever fishing trip, while the boat reaches our catch limit of 27 between us.

It’s an action-packed two hours that thrills the group and - as we motor back to port - Prendeville fillets our fish, throwing the remains to the spectacular, swooping albatross.

Two days later, we all carry our share of frozen fish onto the plane back to Auckland so we can enjoy it back home.

Moriori: Discover the original inhabitants’ tragic past and thriving future

Everyone in our tour group is touched as Maui Solomon tells of his Moriori ancestors’ tragic past.

The Moriori original inhabitants of Rēkohu lived for hundreds of years on the Chathams’ archipelago before many were murdered and the rest enslaved.

“I’ve spent 40 years of my adult life trying to have the truth told,” Solomon says as we stand in a windswept but beautiful corner of the island next to his grandfather Tommy Solomon’s statue.

Moriori traditions tell of their people arriving on Rēkohu direct from eastern Polynesia, before another migration of seafarers arrived from mainland New Zealand.

Then for 500 years they developed their own culture and language.

Most striking is tribal elder Nunuku’s teachings of a peaceful and pacifist society that outlawed killing.

However, two Taranaki iwi - Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama – shattered this peaceful existence by invading the islands on European ships in 1835.

The Moriori could have fought back but chose instead to uphold their “covenant of peace”, Solomon says.

Tragically, it led to about 300 of the 2000 Moriori being killed – often in horrific ways – with the rest being enslaved for three decades.

Maui Solomon, pictured beside the statue of his ancestor Tommy Solomon, is helping lead the revival of Moriori culture on the Chatham Islands. Photo / Ben Leahy

Then in 1870, the colonial government awarded 97 per cent of Rēkohu’s land to the invading Māori iwi and just 3 per cent to Moriori.

This devastating history has only really begun to be addressed in the last 40 years as Moriori bring their culture back to life.

We see this during visits to beautiful artworks Moriori made on kopi trees and to the Kōpinga Marae built in 2005.

Despite the tragic past, Solomon is proud his ancestors didn’t fight back against the invaders.

“Are we gonna keep fighting one another until we’re all wiped out or are we going to find a new way,” he said.

“In these islands, they found a new way and it was very successful for 500 years.”

Munch on pāua on the rocks

Local diver Cookie tells our group he could happily talk about crayfish and pāua all day – and indeed he almost does.

It’s a fascinating history of a fishing industry that went through a gold rush-like boom in the 1960s and 70s that badly depleted crayfish stocks, which have since recovered into a well-managed fishery.

Standing next to an old shed, Cookie – who in true Chatham Islands form introduces himself only by his nickname - tells us how crayfish and pāua are caught and shares tales of great white sharks chomping on divers.

To illustrate his point, Cookie raises aloft the mouth bones and flashing teeth of a great white.

After, we walk to the shoreline to share pāua and kina pulled fresh from the ocean and opened right on the rocks.

Paua on the rocks. Visitors take a share in seafood pulled fresh from the ocean. Photo / Ben Leahy

Kiwi pop and TV star Tina Cross is among those tucking in.

It brings back fond memories of her childhood when her family pulled fresh kina from the water every Christmas Day, she says.

Nowadays, she still eats kina on Christmas Day.

But unlike the old days, she has to buy it from a shop due to mainland New Zealand’s depleted coastlines, she says.

Catch a killer concert

The next night, Cross is up on stage belting out songs like Titanium with fellow Kiwi TV and singing icons Suzanne Lynch and Jackie Clarke.

The trio are performing as The Lady Killers in what I’m told is the first large(ish) outdoor concert ever held on the Chathams.

The stage is the front deck of the Croon family home.

But it is not just any home – it’s become a tourist attraction in its own right.

Lois and Val Croon are Chathams’ entrepreneurs, whose family has a finger in a number of key island businesses.

The crowd twists and shouts to the Lady Killers. Photo / Ben Leahy

Around their house, they’ve planted an amazingly varied garden called Admiral Garden that bursts with colourful flowers, plants and even a forest.

It creates a beautiful and intimate concert setting.

And soon, as the sun sets and free wine flows, our tour group, with its average age hovering around 60, risks replacement hips and knees to boogie enthusiastically on the dance floor.

Visiting friends Janet Hughes and Judy McGrannachan are thrilled with the night, saying they had long planned to come to the Chathams but only decided to buy the tickets when they saw plans for The Lady Killers concert.

They believe plans to turn the concert into an annual event could become a tourist drawcard.

Fossick a fossil and meet the friendly locals

In the days after the concert, we take trips to see a seal colony with adorable, runny-nosed pups, we fossick for shark teeth fossils on the beach near Blind Jim’s Creek, visit a working farm, and wander the museum among other attractions.

Along the way, the super friendly locals light up the trip.

Our bus driver and guide, Marcel Tuuta, is full of anecdotes and jokes.

We go past the famous sign in Waitangi town that points the way to the bottle store, Catholic church and hospital – in that order of importance, quips Tuuta.

“This is the island’s only gym, I’ve barely set foot in it,” he says at another point.

An iconic street sign on the main road to Waitangi, Chatham Island. Photo / Juliette Sivertsen

He’s also full of inside stories of life on the Chathams.

When we pass one rural home, he tells how the young boy living there loved Postman Pat.

Unfortunately, the mailman doesn’t deliver to the home.

Undeterred, the boy’s parents built a letterbox that the grandparents would come and drop letters into, to the youngster’s great delight.

And it is these tales along with the fact that many Chathams’ attractions are on private property and not easily visited by solo travellers, that makes the islands a good choice for those who like going on tour packages.

For us, the tour trip was a chance to make lovely friends while also taking a portal back in time to a wonderful New Zealand way of life that has vanished from many parts of the mainland.