Great Barrier Island

In 1957 (when Grandad Dale was 15), I spent a wonderful week on Great Barrier Island staying with my boarding school mate David “Coop” Cooper.

It’s called Great Barrier Island because it protects the Hauraki Gulf (and Auckland Harbour) from the sometimes stormy Pacific Ocean.  Nowadays it’s a popular tourist destination, but in 1957 there were far fewer visitors and not many residents at all.

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In those days you travelled to “the Barrier” on a small ship, leaving from Leigh (near Warkworth).

The trip out to the island was so very exciting.  It was at night and I can still remember looking over the ship’s bow and seeing dolphins diving in and out of the water as they raced alongside us.  It was all the more exciting because the dolphins glowed with phosphorescence, which you can see an example of in this short video:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMLnzljlRXg.  Phosphorescence is caused by plankton in the water.

Here is an interesting article about interactions between humans and dolphins in New Zealand:  www.teara.govt.nz/en/dolphins/page-5.

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The Coopers lived in Port Fitzroy, in the northwest of the island (in the house marked “Glenfern Sanctuary Accommodation” in the picture).  It was their home, a boarding house, and the local post office.  Mrs Cooper was the postmistress and Mr Cooper ran a “store” across the inlet (where it says “Port Fitzroy”).

It was such a beautiful place with bush clad hills and very still waters.  The only buildings I remember were their home and the store.  The store was on the wharf;  just a huge shed, really, full of provisions to sell to the locals.  I don’t remember any other houses in the inlet.

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Each day Coop and I spent hours rowing a dinghy around the inlet.  We had the whole place to ourselves, with not another boat in sight.  I’m afraid I wasn’t very good at the rowing and kept losing rowlocks (pronounced “rollicks”) over the side.  I don’t think Mr Cooper was very pleased!!!

Some days we got as far as the very small Quoin Island, which is known to the locals as Grave Island (because all that’s on it is old graves).  We never landed on it, because Coop and I were both a bit nervous about ghosts, which is pretty silly really, because there’s no such thing as ghosts, so there was nothing to worry about.

One day, friends took us fishing on a launch off nearby Little Barrier Island, and I caught a “granddaddy hapuka” (ugly as, eh)!!!  My one weighed a whopping 12 pounds (over 5kg).  I remember the adults on the boat being hugely impressed, saying it must truly be a “granddaddy” (very old).

We also sometimes went rabbit shooting up in the farmland behind the house.  There seemed to be hundreds of the cute little pests and we’d lie there in the grass having turns at shooting them with a BB gun.  The rabbit stew the next night was delicious!!!

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It was my only ever trip to Great Barrier Island and I loved every minute of it.