Lighthouses and tuataras
13 May 1957
13 to 14 May Stephens Island
Monday 13 May 1957
The 13th, not perhaps the most auspicious day on which to undertake the most hazardous voyage of my stay in NZ but it proved a perfect day. I left Picton at 8.15am on the 42ft government launch ‘Enterprise’ for Stephens Island, eight hours out on the extreme north west corner of the South Island off D’Urville Island and due west of Paraparaumu in the North Island …
Porpoises or dolphins were all around, one school remaining close to the boat for some time – as close a view as I have ever had of these 4-5 footers. Took some photos through the hatch but very difficult to stand up and shield the lens from spray when, even sitting, I was being hurled from one end of the seat to the other ...
[On arrival on Stephens Island] Landing was in the lee of the 600ft high island and in comparative calm. We circled first into a shallow cove and dropped the dinghy which had been hauled up on deck – too wet to tow her at anchor. Then sailed round under the lofty winch and crane and the mate grabbed the big oblong box as it dangled over the decks.
I hopped in, my baggage came after and I was swung aloft, gyrating violently as the coiled rope-wire cable uncoiled itself. On and up then swung around in a circle. Said “Good aft” to two bearded faces as I swung above them and then got plomped at their feet with an undignified thump and stepped out while the cable was lowered again without the box to be hooked round some sacks of coal.
… Magnificent views of D’Urville Island, the Sounds and the coast of Nelson Bay, brilliant sun and later a red sunset. Gannets, giant petrels, white-fronted shearwaters, mutton birds, cape pigeons, shags, terns and gulls offshore and fur seals on the rooks below.
Listed plants and took soil samples to my heart’s content. The whole island riddled with burrows of dove petrel or fairy prion ...
Back to introduce myself to Rodger Blanshard, wife, four infants (5, 7, 9, 11) and two technicians, overhauling the light. The Blanshards a remarkable pair, full of fun and activity, college trained and had given up a business to settle here and make a life for the children and stop the ‘money grab’ of civilisation. He was also chief government wildlife warden, an expert photographer, keen naturalist and painter of many lovely oils round the walls. Shown to my room, then an enormous and excellent dinner, loin of lamb and many veg, apple crumble and fresh cream, coffee and cherry brandy. Looked at dozens of colour slides of tuataras and birds till 8.30pm when it was time to radio the ‘Enterprise’ to tell her to call for me later than scheduled on the morrow. While Rodger did this one of the technicians showed me round the lighthouse lower floor … Blanshard then showed me the lantern with its thousands of pounds worth of glass prisms around and above reflecting the light of a 1000 watt bulb back to the central lenses which gave a double beam at three second intervals. NZ very advanced in that all her lights now electric whereas the rest of the world, including USA, is still running on kerosene and silk mantles winding up at intervals of ½ - 1 hour ...…
Then out on a conducted tour of this part of the island with Blanshard. Horace, the lighthouse tuatara or dinosaural lizard, for which the islands are famous, was not at home but we found plenty more up to 2’ 6” long some of which we took inside and put in the sink to photograph next day. Saw also some smaller geckos about 6” long.
Went round various bird colonies and saw and stepped thro’ into plenty of holes but not a good time for birds. The prions which had left in January were now beginning to come back and I had heard some crowing underground during the afternoon but we saw none by the light of our torches.
Tuesday 14 May 1957
... After a huge breakfast I worked my way through the gull colonies of the grassy cliff edge … Then up and back into the bush to list the vegetation of various prion and muttonbird colonies. Then back to the house for Rodger to photograph me festooned about with the tuataras which had spent an uneventful night in the sink ...
‘Enterprise’ was already in and had cast the dinghy so the two technicians and I lost no time in clambering into the box and getting spun out over the sea. We picked up the dinghy and were away riding really huge seas which tossed the little 42ft craft around mercilessly in spite of the pilot’s constant hard hauling of the wheel to tilt her into every trough. … With the sea’s help we made it in record time and were into Picton in about 6½ hours (8 hours going out). Self not the slightest bit seasick again. Evidently I’m built right for the ‘Enterprise’s’ rock ’n’ roll!
15 to 22 May The Brothers
Wednesday 15 May 1957
Presented myself on the jetty at 8am full of hope in spite of the bad forecast, low black clouds sitting on the hills and considerable breeze. Brian accepted me, the radio technician for Brothers appeared and we were away by 8.15am. More chocolate eclairs for morning tea, then out of the Sound into the swell, past Long Island, White Island and the Twins and so out to The Brothers where huge waves were breaking over the landing with three lightkeepers manning the crane and dangling a puny looking net high above the water but washed with spume. It looked quite impossible with those offshore rocks just beyond the launches bow but somehow Brian brought her close enough in for the mate to be able to grab the net with the boat hook, haul it in and switch the hook to the other net loaded with our kit …The fortnight’s stores were brought ashore in the net through sheets of spray and Clifford, the radio technician was dangled over the briny for what must have seemed an interminable time before the ‘Enterprise’s’ mate managed to drag him inboard with the boathook as he swung past the plunging boat on one of her circuits. He stepped off (not out), the technique being not to get in the net because of the danger of being dropped and entangled, but to put one foot through the outside of a load of luggage and hang on. Maybe I should try it on the way off ...
We forthwith boarded the trolley on top of the luggage and were hauled up the almost vertical slope to the lighthouse and a cold meat lunch with tea. A lone female on a 240ft high 5 acre rock with four wild men – but not so wild it proved, I was to have my meals with them and sleep in a hut some way down the cliff – pretty crude but with electric light and with all amenities for one ...
Off after tea with a torch into a wonderland of wildlife. The air alive with fairy prions uttering the most surprising wails, quite different from the Manx. Some of the grounded birds proved to be the little black-backed diving petrel with short bill, blue feet and squat form, but the black dove petrels were most numerous. … I stalked three blue penguins over the cliff face; two of them ran into a fallen Hebe bough and one got annoyed and blamed the other, leaping across his back and slapping the bird’s sides resounding thwacks with his flippers. As this pair stuck together throughout they could have been mates and this might have been part of the courting process but it didn’t look like it.
Friday 17 May 1957
[arrival of Dick Barwick and his party, then] Out around the island with my two new companions – an exploratory trip as far as the south and west were concerned as I had been weather-bound previously. … The two men then went off with torches to collect geckos and tuataras (Dick’s special study) … Dick weighed, measured and marked (by combinations of toe clipping) his reptiles … the tuataras made disgusting croaks when handled. They can, incidentally, inflict a good bite and scratch viciously and even the toothless geckos were not backward in getting hold of a chunk of the hand which held them ...
Sunday 19 May 1957
… George spent quite a part of the day fishing again and once again had his line repeatedly broken and his hook repeatedly straightened out by the 4-5ft long brown shark which persisted in taking the blue cod bait and making light of it. Some of the deepest waters in the world occur in the Cook Strait – NZ having almost no continental shelf – they were not fished out and possibilities were endless. …George caught a conger eel 4ft 7ins long, two fat Kawhai 2 ft long (a bloody red fleshed fish not particularly good eating), three blue cod (which made excellent eating) and two blind eels, slime eels or hag fish. Revolting creatures these, almost impossible to get off the line and the most disgusting of nightmarish horrors. About 2ft long, very wrigglesome, tying itself in figure of 8 knots round the line …