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 anymore,” 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 shellfish 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.
READ MORE: What to do on the Chatham Islands 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 hist.
