The Place to be on Jan. 1
Chatham Island is the first place on earth to see the sun

Author: By Elizabeth Benney, Globe Correspondent

Date: SUNDAY, February 21, 1999

Page: M1

Section: Travel

AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- ``10, 9, 8 . . 3, 2, 1, HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone!'' The public address system jerks me out of a fitful sleep.

``We've just crossed the International Dateline,'' the first officer announces. ``In two hours' time we'll be arriving in Auckland.''

The sun comes up and I peer out the window and look for the first signs of land. Three Kings Island, isolated green hills sweeping down to endless sandy bays, the Coromandel Peninsula. It's been 20 hours since I left a snowy Boston.

Arriving in New Zealand gives me a wonderful feeling of relaxation. Everything's laid-back when I walk outside into a glow of summer heat, whip off my sweater, and greet old friends.

``Guess where I'm going after visiting my family?'' I ask them with a grin. ``To the Chathams!''

``The Chathams! You're mad.'' I look at their horrified faces. ``You'll be bored stiff,'' they tell me in unison. ``You hate fishing, Liz. Are you suddenly interested in birds? And the plane's a seven-seater. Just think of it. Straight into the Pacific blue.''

Well, it's too late to change my mind.

Thirteen days later, I arrive in Christchurch on the South Island.

Looking up more friends, I get better responses.

``Lucky you,'' two of them tell me. ``It's a wonderful place. Lonely beaches, windblown landscapes, and you must search for the 40-million-year-old fossilized sharks' teeth in the Lagoon.''

I know all this from my reading and that the Chathams are made up of 10 islands, but only two of them are inhabited, the isolated Pitt Island with a few people living on six farms and the main island of Chatham, boasting 650 residents.

There are three places to stay. The waterfront pub, boozy and substandard. A motel described as an establishment suited to groups, with communal kitchen and shared bathroom. And the Chatham Lodge, on a 1,500-acre sheep and cattle farm, miles from any other houses. Here I have a booking (after calling direct from Massachusetts), for the 16th through the 18th, but nothing is available for the night of my arrival.

``No problem, Miss,'' the proprietor had assured me. ``We'll find you a pillow somewhere. Plenty of private homes.'' On my third day in Christchurch, I go to the International Airport, return my rental, and find the Chatham Airlines check-in counter.

``Hi,'' I greet a young man. ``I'm checking in for the 11:30 flight.'' ``It's already left, Ma'am.''

``Please,'' I retort, ``I'm not in the mood for bad jokes today.''

``Ma'am! The plane left at 9:30 a.m.''

``Why?'' I gasp.

``That's the Chatham Airlines for you. We didn't know where you were staying so we couldn't contact you.''

When I booked through Air New Zealand in the United States, I'd been told there was one plane a day, and I'd had great difficulty arranging my timetable and getting on any one flight during January.

``But you're in luck,'' the man continues. ``There's another plane this afternoon. Most unusual, but you'll have to fly via Wellington. By the way,'' he says, staring at my face, ``what are you?''

``What do you mean?'' I say, my voice rising.

``You an American or a New Zealander?''

``I was born and raised in this country, but I've spent more than half of my life in Massachusetts.''

``Call yourself an American on the island. Better reception.''

The arrivals monitor posts the return of my plane for 2:10 p.m.The afternoon ticks by: 2:30, 3, 3:30, 4. But the arrival time for the Chathams' plane stays stuck at 2:10. I return to the counter.

``Are you sure there's a plane coming in?'' I ask.

``It'll come, Ma'am. Who knows when. Often the locals are late at their airport. The pilot knows everyone and waits for them.''

We finally load at half past four and set off for Wellington in a Metro 3, a tiny cigar-shaped plane, so low inside I can't stand up straight. I plonk myself onto the front seat by the door, and a very young-looking pilot turns around to welcome me.

``Hey! You a Kiwi or a Yank?'' he asks after we've chatted a moment.

``A bit of both,'' I answer, laughing.

``Call yourself a New Zealander on the Chathams,'' he advises. ``Better reception!''

We are three passengers riding to Wellington, and on the bumpy descent into the narrow windy airport, mail, brown paper parcels, cookies, three empty plastic bottles and -- of all things -- The Thesaurus of the English Language and The English Dictionary fall off two seats and slide along the floor.

During the brief stopover, two more passengers join our flight, and the pilot announces there are great tail winds today.

``Should get us there in under two hours,'' he says, revving up the engines. We lift off and turn east, into the latitude of the Roaring Forties.

Growing up in New Zealand, all I knew about the Chatham Islands was the weather, given at the end of the mainland's daily forecast, and once in a geography lesson I was asked to locate the position of the islands, deep in the Pacific Ocean. (Which, incidentally, dominated most of the center of our classroom's map of the world!) Why am I going to this isolated place, separated from Wellington by 560 miles and thousands of miles of empty ocean east to South America? Good question. A year before, I'd picked up a brochure and read how the Chathams were one of the few places on earth still undiscovered by tourists.

``Come and see the varied terrain,'' I'd read, ``the long white lonely sandy beaches, blowholes, rugged rocky coastlines, majestic cliffs, volcanic peaks, glistening shallow lagoons, lush green farmlands, peat bogs, dense forests.'' Just what I needed after the bustle of life in America.

``And don't forget,'' the brochure told its readers, ``Chatham time is 45 minutes ahead of the mainland's time!'' Our first sight of land is a pile of rocks being pounded by the ocean.

And then the main island. It's flat, with a few low volcanic outcrops and a shore stretching much farther into the distance than I'd expected. At the Inia William Tuuta Memorial Airport, in the middle of nowhere (one short runway, one small building), the pilot asks if I'm being met, and I tell him a bit grimly. ``Yeah! This morning.''

``Listen,'' he says, ``I'll hang around to see if you're OK. I'll take you into town if no one turns up.'' But moments later I'm met by John, with the good news they've found me a room for tonight. In the lodge, after all.

``Met the plane this morning,'' he tells me. ``Figured you slept in!''

After bundling my backpack into his very dusty old car, we set off down a metal (gravel) road for the 15-minute ride to the lodge. We pass no cars and no houses and only brake for loose sheep. My heart sinks as I look at the ``green farmland'' -- nothing but regenerating bracken ferns and prickly gorse, weedy stock, and sagging barbed wire fencing.

When I ask John what has happened to the land, he explains that the fishing boom in the early 1980s sent many farmers from this area out to the sea. When prices fell and the men returned to their land, it had become ``dirty,'' and now they can't make enough to qualify for loans to clean up the pastures.

But not all the land's in poor condition. We turn onto a clay track and the fields change into one glorious landscape.

``This is my farm,'' John tells me with pride. To my right, three men are finishing making hay, and I gaze across a lake full of black swans and mallard ducks, and beyond is an endless pasture of superb beef cattle, many still with calves at their sides.

``Five hundred of them in there,'' says John.

Above us is the lodge, set into a hillside with a backdrop of native bush.

I recommend this lodge. My room is really cozy, with a shower and a modern telephone that doesn't shut down for the night! (Telecom replaced the old switchboard/operator system in 1990.) And, I have a 110-watt outlet for my American electric toothbrush. No lock on the door. No problem. Leave your purse, passport, and cash on the bed all day while you're out sightseeing.

There's little crime on the island other than a bit of beer brawling at the pub on a Saturday night and some spousal and child abuse, a cycle that social workers are trying to break.

I go down to the dining room where a party of 16 ``over 50s'' is celebrating their last night before returning to New Zealand. (Never refer to it as the mainland.) I'm seated by myself and served a plate brimming with crayfish (lobster), fried grouper, and crispy vegetables.

On a help-yourself-table is a choice of pavlova, New Zealand's national meringue dessert; a trifle; and another New Zealand specialty, hokey-pokey ice cream. And a must is the excellent island-produced beer, Black Robin.

No need to close the drapes when I undress, and I watch a full moon rise over a still farmland and relive the fun my children had when they visited their grandparents and stared in awed confusion as both the sun and the moon traveled from right to left across the northern sky.

``It's because you're in the Southern Hemisphere,'' I'd explain, ``and you're looking north towards the equator.'' The wind has dropped and the peace is only broken by the occasional sound of cattle mooing 20 feet from my room and the bleat of a lamb.

The first inhabitants of the Chathams were Polynesians who probably came about a thousand years ago, accidentally, in drifting canoes from New Zealand.

Today, these early settlers are known as Moriori. Following the islands' discovery by Western explorers in 1791, many American and European whalers and sealers arrived and decimated this rich food supply of the natives. In 1835, nine hundred warlike Maoris (from my birth province of Taranaki!) arrived from the mainland after commandeering a trading vessel. They brutally overcame the peaceful Moriori and established themselves on the land by right of conquest.

Over time, much intermarriage of the white man (pakeha), Maori, and Moriori has occurred, and since 1933 there are no full-blooded Moriori left. Today, about 40 percent of the islanders are of Moriori/Maori descent, and the balance are predominantly European.

Day One of my trip starts with a classic New Zealand breakfast: cereal, canned peaches, yogurt from the help-yourself table, and bacon and eggs, fried tomatoes, and four pieces of toast served fresh from the kitchen. I'm now the only guest in the lodge, and John announces there is no gasoline on the island until the supply ship from the mainland arrives later in the day. I tell him I've brought my chaps and hard-riding hat all the way from Massachusetts and was hoping to get around on a horse.

``Well, that's a problem,'' he says. ``No one rents horses any more. But, tell you what. Our cook has two old nags. Bet she'll take you for a spin along the beach at Waitangi. She's free after lunch.''

John recommends I spend the morning tramping through Henga Scenic Reserve, his own conservation area stretching some miles behind the lodge. ``It's well marked,'' he says, ``or you'd get hopelessly lost!''

The hike starts through a lonely area of native Kopi and Mahoe trees and I listen to the songs of the early-morning birds. Underfoot, all I disturb are native Wekas, birds like large speckle-feathered chickens. And there are no snakes! The bush dwindles and I reach endless sand dunes, stabilized by a tussock that is surprisingly silky to the touch, by a low scrubby shrub, and a flowering succulent ground cover. Below me, the Pacific Ocean crashes onto a deserted golden beach, and there's not a person, a building, or an animal in sight.

I follow the markers above the shoreline for about half a mile, climb over a wire fence, and hit the beach, stretching forever in both directions.

``Two or three surfers have been to this area and tell me the waves are better than in Hawaii,'' John told me earlier. ``And how they loved having the ocean to themselves.''

Only a foolhardy adventurer would go into this water. The undercurrent is the worst I've ever seen.

Later, Chris, the cook, drives me into town in one of the lodge's cars.

``Hope you can drive a shift car,'' she says, ``You'll be bringing yourself back.'' I put on my seat belt, and she laughs. ``Hey! No one follows New Zealand rules out here.''

``Chris,'' I say, looking back at the car we've just passed. ``That's the third one I've seen without a license plate.''

``No problem,'' she tells me. ``We don't bother with warrant of fitnesses [inspection stickers] either. The island's policeman just insists we have good brakes, good steering, and lights! Look! There's the race course.''

A meet is held once a year over three days. Many people ``import'' jockeys from New Zealand for the occasion and put them up in their homes. The horses are trained along the beaches and among the sand dunes, and it's everyone's dream to win the Chatham Cup -- on a barefoot horse, since there are no blacksmiths on the islands.

``I trim my own nags,'' Chris tells me.

Her daughter, Rena, has two large bays all tacked up when we arrive in Waitangi village, the islands' capital. Rena's home from a boarding school in New Zealand. There's no high school on the island, and the government helps pay her fees and air fares. For those who can't, or don't want to, go to boarding school, there's correspondence school.

I'm shown an old pony who ripped two feet of skin off his belly and was sewn together by the local doctor. The scar is barely visible.

``No vets on the Chathams, Liz. The doctor had no tranquilizer so we threw the pony and tied her four feet together. The doc did have a pain killer to inject into the area.''

I ask what happens if someone becomes seriously ill.

``Oh,'' says Chris, ``We just fly them to New Zealand.'' If someone has an injury, like a broken leg, at sea or in the hills, a rescue helicopter comes out from Christchurch. It can't carry enough fuel for the return trip, so a propeller plane has to come, too, and bring the extra fuel.

Chris and I ride one minute to reach the beach and set out for a point four miles away where the sands end in steep red cliffs. It's one of the most memorable rides of my life for the sheer beauty of the smooth beach, the pounding surf, the endless dunes. It's also memorable for a saddle that feels like a concrete block, and the feel of a stiff old horse -- a far cry from riding competition horses!

We kick our lazy mounts away from home and alternate between cantering along the edge of the water or riding along a path twisting through the rolling dunes. When we finally turn for home, our mounts prick up their ears and surge into a mad gallop, quite out of control. It's useless pulling on the reins, so I stand up in the saddle, brace my hands on the horse's neck, and let him run.

Two miles later, the poor animal is blowing so hard I yell to Chris we'd better walk for a bit.

``Walk?'' she shouts back. ``Then turn into the water.'' We're in over three feet deep, and two huge waves have splashed me before my horse slows down. I can't stop laughing and wipe salt water that drips from my hunt cap and down my face.

Later, Chris takes me for a drive around Waitangi, and we watch the boat being loaded with sheep to be sold in New Zealand. She insists we go to the souvenir shop, and I buy the two sole items on the shelf -- T-shirts for my grandchildren.

Two new delightful middle-aged guests have arrived at the lodge: Maureen, a Caucasian, and her husband, Joe, a full-blooded Maori. After dinner, we lounge around the TV and watch the news, the only ``live'' program from New Zealand.

The local ads come on:

Dr. David Robb, optometrist from New Zealand, will be at the Court House on Monday for consultations.

Wanted to buy: one coal range in working condition. Phone 353.

To give to a good home. 4 kittens. Ph. 176.

Happy birthday, Ron. Love, Judy.

Alan and Bertha B. announce the birth of their daughter. All well.

There will be no power for three successive afternoons for those serviced by the generator at the fishing plant. We are shutting down for repairs.

The following morning I'm so stiff I can hardly get out of bed. Ken, an islander jack-of-all-trades, arrives to take us three guests sightseeing.

We set off down the dusty metal road to the Lagoon to hunt for famous blue/gray sharks' teeth. I find nothing, but Chris has already given me several and suggested I have them made into a pendant and earrings.

On to the dendroglyphs, 200- to 300-year-old Moriori carvings on the trunks of a grouping of native Kopi trees and accessed through miles of rough pasture with not another person in sight.

By lunch time, we're in the tiny remote village of Kaingaroa. Sailing weather is bad today and seven or eight fishing boats are all rocking in the harbor, their crews hanging out and drinking beer at the Social Center. We eat crayfish sandwiches prepared by John's wife, Denise, and drink Black Robin beer, which happens to be made in a small building just above the beach.

Kaingaroa's at the end of the road, so Ken walks us to the ocean and we bend into the strong wind and search for rare plants. Joe eyes the rich beds of paua shells in the tidal zone. The landscape is dotted with low volcanic outcrops that are steam fissures poking out of the sea as part of a huge underwater Pacific ridge. And over the next hill, to the east, is the first place on earth where the sun will rise on Jan. 1, 2000! Chatham Island is expecting about 2,000 visitors for the event, mostly friends and family of islanders.

All the rest,'' Ken says with a grin, ``will have to stay offshore in cruise ships, and for the big event will be taken to the hill by helicopter.''

When I tell him I'd heard there was an island in Tonga that will see the year 2000 moments earlier, he dismisses it with a wave of his hand. ``Yeah. There's bit of a rock sticking up, but no one lives on it.''

All roads on the island, except for one short loop, end in a gate, so we must retrace our steps. We drive back past Blind Jim's Creek, turn through a gate, and follow red markers over rough fields and through more and more gates.

At a sign, Nikau Bush Scenic Reserve, we climb out of the van, clamber over a stile, and walk along a grassy pathway winding to a famous stand of Nikaus, a temperate indigenous tree, looking like a palm and out of place in the thick-leafed evergreen forest.

While we wander along, I tell Ken I was warned that the islanders are not very friendly toward outsiders but so far everyone's been wonderful.

He laughs.

There's a picnic at the gun club on my last full day. There'll be three-legged races, egg and spoon races, and barbecues, and everyone on the main island will attend. The summer day is freezing and windy. I put on extra sweaters and tell Denise I'd rather explore more of the land, and she offers me the old car and a packed lunch.

That everybody is at the picnic is no understatement. I drive in two directions, to the end of the roads, to the gates. And I see not one person. To be so alone is both eerie and thrilling. Just me and the constant changing of the landscape, from rough pasture to pristine, from lowlands to hills and the seascape, never far from the road. I pass isolated farmhouses with windmills for electricity and shelter belts of flax and native trees, bent double by the wind. And nearby, cattle and sheep graze with their backs to the west.

The roads are rough and winding. The only hot top runs for a few yards beside the island's tiny schools and for a kilometer in Waitangi. I'm glad John gave me two spare tires. Flats are common.

``But John,'' I'd told him this morning. ``It's years since I changed a puncture.'' And he'd said not to worry, that the first (?) person to come along would always stop to give a helping hand. I drive slowly and carefully, just in case, and stop frequently at every lonely view. Until the gate! Warned that farmers require strangers to ask permission to cross their land, I back the car about 500 yards until I can turn around and wend my way to the lodge.

The following morning, I'm driven to the airport. This time, I'll be flying in the other Chatham Airlines' plane, a Convair, half of which is converted for transport. I say goodbye to Denise and feel as though I've been staying in a private home and should have made my bed and helped with the dishes.

Inside the ``terminal building'' I sit at a small table, and a woman I've never seen before comes from behind the counter where she serves tea, a few sandwiches, and meat pies.

``I bet I know who you are,'' she says, a huge smile across her open Polynesian face. ``You're the lady who missed the plane in Christchurch and bolted into the waves on Waitangi Beach. Do come back for the new millennium.''

Round-trip air fare from Christchurch to the Chathams is $392 US.

Four nights at the Chatham Lodge, including all meals, the day tour, and use of a car and fuel totaled $335 US.