The Final Frontier

It's been called the last great untouched, non-commercialised adventure left in the country; Air Chathams’ Marketing and Sales Manager Brent Condon went on a personal journey to the Chatham Islands to find out if it’s true.

I ALWAYS SAY THE CHATHAM ISLANDSare like Stewart Island on steroids; the size of the creatures and the coastline and the marine life really is something to behold. It has an almost Jurassic feel, something you can’t quite describe, but to me what makes it so special is the mix of unique wildlife, unique scenery, and unique cultures; Moriori, Māori, sealers, settlers and whalers, it’s seen it all throughout a very volatile history. And that history seems palpable even now.

I’m lucky enough to have friends there, and while I’ve visited as part of my job, I wanted to take some time to travel there on my own time and experience the Chatham Islands as the last frontier for outdoor adventures.

I stayed with long-lost friends John and Bridget Preece at the amazing Kōpī Bush Retreat in the foothills of a hunting and fishing Nirvana. John is a hard, hard man, with a beautiful, wild spirit, the perfect mix of Moriori, Ngāti Mutunga and Welsh stock. He knew my Dad and I have memories of my father reminiscing about this mysterious family with the last name Preece that we knew in the Chatham Islands. So, over the last two or three years I’ve tried to make an effort to touch base with them; over time they’ve become good friends, and I’ve learnt about them and their adventure tourism business.

I’d brought an inflatable kayak with me asI wanted to get off the rocks, and past theforests of kelp, and see the coastline - and,of course, fish! Catching blue cod is amazing,whether on fly rods or with soft baits, anddoing it in such a wild environment is justsomething you really have to experience.

I was lucky enough to meet local woman and ‘bee whisperer’ Kaai Silbery, whose company Tarahina Honey is doing amazing things with exporting locally produced honey, and she asked me if I was taking the kayak out on the ocean. I said I certainly was, and she asked me if my kids were old enough to take care of themselves - “because to the great white sharks you’re going to look like lunch!”

Because what the Chatham Islands has, unlike other parts of the world, is a very healthy number of large sharks! Large sharks, I was told, love fresh bait, and I’d brought some heavy gear with me, so got some juicy kahawai heads - and went on a bit of a mission!

Now, the beautiful thing is that it doesn’t take long for the sharks to sniff them out; you just drop the spool on your casting reel and point the rod towards the water and let it free flow; so I let a shark take my line and free spool, but to be honest all I’m hearing in my head is that famous cello from the Jaws movie! It goes, stops and it goes again for a bit, then it goes off for a little bit more - and then the line goes absolutely berserk! You then tighten up on the line, strike for a Hail Mary and you’re in.

Some of these sharks are not exactly small, being 12 - 13 foot Seven Gills. These are some of the most ancient sharks in the world, with eyes like they were spawn from the depths of helland they fight like something from the depths of hell. I look back at growing up around the

Manukau Harbour, when bragging rights were a few sprats and a 2kg kahawai - fast forward to taking a full sized shark off a Chathams wharf and the young jetty rat’s mind is blown!

The eyes of these sharks are primal and blood red, with an almost florescent orange fleck at the sides that burns like lava. They say the eyes are the gate way to the soul - if indeed you have one! - and being up close and personal with a species that is 200 million years old with volcanic eyes somehow made me feel very small and insignificant on this planet.

That was just one episode in a week of adventure; hunting, bird watching, seeing the stars over the Southern Ocean. But it seems to sum up my whole week on the Chathams. When you have a love for hunting and fishing, it sometimes seems that it has all been discovered, all been done. A trip to the Chathams proves that wrong. It really is the last frontier of New Zealand and maybe of the South Pacific, and you really need to go there while the going is good.