Treasure island's happy castaways

In our final article from the Hauraki Gulf, ANNE BESTON and photographer PETER MEECHAM call at Motuihe, long a favourite for visitors.

If Ronnie Harrison ever takes that holiday she might visit her neighbours. Or maybe go to a shopping mall, just to have a look, not to buy anything.

She hasn't had a holiday for at least three years and everyone needs a break now and then, "even from something that's idyllic".

Mrs Harrison and her partner, Terry Gibbons, first visited Motuihe Island more than 20 years ago but didn't think they would end up running the place. "Hell, no," she says, "we only called in to get pinecones."

We've called in to avoid the weather. On the final leg of our four-day Hauraki Gulf tour, the weather has decided to stop threatening to deteriorate and do the real thing.

That morning, we left our peaceful bay at Te Kouma Harbour, on the western side of Coromandel Peninsula, and headed across the top of the Firth of Thames towards the bottom of Waiheke Island.

Cruising through the Tamaki Strait in a choppy swell, Waiheke gradually changes from rolling, vacant farmland to pockets of baches huddled around the shoreline of the south-side beaches.

With the decision made to head around Waiheke's northwestern tip and out to Rakino Island, skipper Fran Whitworth flicks on the coastguard forecast. Even I know a two-zero-knot-wind-rising-to-two-five-knots doesn't sound too good.

For the first time in four days, our skipper is looking doubtful. That's more than enough for her two novice crew, one of whom is prone to seasickness. We scuttle the Rakino idea, assuring her we are happy to head to Motuihe.

Like Motutapu, Motuihe is a favourite for school trips, summer day outings and stop-offs for boaties. It has a regular ferry service in summer and great swimming. In a prevailing southwesterly, swimmers move to the sheltered beach on the eastern side. In a nor'easterly like today's, it's the other way round.

"It's affordable and accessible for the ordinary Kiwi. I don't want it to become a tourist destination," Ms Harrison says. "I want it to stay true to itself."

Still wearing her plastic cap and apron from making sandwiches in the kiosk, she jump-starts an ancient van parked at the top of a small slope - to save the battery - and takes us on a rabbit tour.

They are the island's biggest problem, she says. Dozens gaze at us from brown paddocks, hopping across the road in front of the van. There is an eradication plan, but "you'll have to talk to DoC about that", she says carefully.

A restoration trust was formed just over a year ago to work with the Conservation Department to "restore Motuihe to its rightful place as a jewel of the Hauraki Gulf", according to the leaflet.

They are getting there slowly, Ms Harrison says, but they can't do much until the rabbits have gone.

DoC administers the 179ha island while Ms Harrison and Mr Gibbons are "concessionaires", running the shop, the small farm and the catering business.

She's 56 and has worked hard here for 17 years. The isolation means you have to be a problem-solver, turn your hand to anything.

Running the shop doesn't pay much but the catering makes some money.

Corporate groups and families come out for the day or in the evening for a meal, sitting under the marquee looking out towards Waiheke.

Today, a blustering nor'easterly rips over the narrow isthmus at Wharf Bay, where a large group of school children are picking up shells and trying to pluck up the courage for a November swim.

She encourages us to take a walk. There's plenty to see, including old grave sites from the 1918 influenza epidemic when the island was used as a human quarantine station.

Motuihe is a shortened version of Te Motu-a-Ihenga, or Ihenga's Island. Maori built two pa here and the island is a taonga (treasure).

It was bought in 1839 by a European settler and farmed until 1872, when the Government purchased it for the quarantine station. Germans living in New Zealand and Samoa were interned in the station during the First World War. When the Second World War broke out it became a naval training base but reverted to a public domain in 1963.

Ms Harrison remembers asking the woman who ran the kiosk 20 years ago if she was interested in selling. "You and 10,000 others, she told us."

But a few years later they saw the kiosk advertised for tender and applied. She and Terry lived on a 52ft scow at the time and familiarity with living in isolation may have got them the job.

"Bad things hardly ever happen here. I love it, I love the way it changes with the seasons. It's a good place for us."

People watch out for each other in this part of the gulf. Coastguard and DoC are there if needed, Fullers the ferry company has been good to her.

"The island gets into your sense of yourself after a while. It becomes something to cherish, more than just a home."

But they're not "rock happy", sitting too long on an island, not wanting to leave and not wanting anyone to arrive.

So she will take that holiday. She has never been to some of the other islands, she would like to see the neighbours.

And at the shopping mall, she would like to just sit and watch other people, see what they're wearing. The shoes the girls wear these days, she says, shaking her head.

* Fullers ferries run a regular service to Motuihe Island in summer. For details phone Fullers 09 367-9111.