Oct 05 2023
Quarantine/St Martins Island
*Click this Wikipedia entry on Quarantine Island, if you wish.
*Click here for a PDF fact sheet of the original Quarantine Island
*And here is the St Martin Island Community web page. Click the photo at the bottom to see original buildings!
*Click a quarantine-island-botanical-report for a (bit dated) 1987 report on the island’s vegetation, if you like.
30 kms PJP to Back Beach.
5. 4/10/2023. Combined. Quarantine Island. Grade 2, Leaders: Ross and Wyn Davies, Maria MacNee, Jenny Finnerty.
Twenty-eight trampers and hikers enjoyed a great day out with calm and temperate weather, a little cloudy, not the blue skies and sun the forecast promised. Perfect weather though for the crossing to Quarantine Island. Our day had started with a little confusion regarding numbers and meeting places but we all managed to get ourselves to Back Beach carpark safely (Julie and Viv might tell a few tales about their driver though, lol).
We walked off for morning tea in Lady Thorn Dell…
… where we enjoyed fabulous views of the busy Port Chalmers.
Great photos and history on display at the lookout platform. Little remains of the dry dock and ship building industry that once provided for a vibrant community in the 19th and 20th centuries.
From Lady Thorn Dell we enjoy a leisurely meander through the town cemetery which it has to be said seems to hold an unhealthy interest for those of us still in the land of the living? Indicative of the average age of our enclave perhaps…? Nonetheless, interesting history to be gleaned from those old stones and bones.
Coming back down to the Port we get a stunning glimpse of Carey’s Bay…
… before heading back to the wharf and Boiler Point where Captain John welcomes us aboard the island ferry the “Vivienne J”. After John treats us to a grand jaunt around the harbour basin (greatly appreciated by all on board)…
…we “set sail” for the island, not bad value at $20 return! One wag commented that “It was very nice of Bruce to organise a cruise for Jenny on her birthday….”
Arriving at the jetty on the island, the skeletons of the Waikana…
… and the Oreti form a kind of decaying guard of honour as we head up to the Lodge for lunch.
After lunch we explore the island starting with the restored Married Quarters building in which is housed a beautifully modelled miniature of the Waikana as she was when in service as a harbour ferry.
Regenerating native bush rang with the sound of native bird life as we enjoyed an easy 30-minute walk around the island.
Our walks included visiting the sad sight of the island’s cemetery where the remains of 72 immigrants lay, half of them children, in unmarked graves. The small mounds are especially evocative. A sobering reminder of the fate of many immigrants who survived the arduous journey from the other side of the world in search of a better future, only to perish of scarletina and other deadly diseases in quarantine before they even set foot on the mainland.
Heading back across the harbour our day is nicely rounded off by afternoon tea at the Santosha Cafe in the Port.
A wonderful day out enjoyed by all.
Maria Continue Reading »