Chatham

Main Wharf (from above the Chatham Hotel) - Waitangi

Town Centre - Waitangi

Port Hutt

It's a volcanic island - lots of cones and eroded volcano plugs, basalt colomns and weird lava formations

...and sheep

Public beach at Waitangi West

Paua (black abalone)

Bull kelp

Pumice

Volcanic plug

Chimney rock

Most trees here are 'flagged' - Norfolk pines seem immune to prevailing wind directions (as do our native cabbage trees)

Wharekauri (place name)

Old boiler - Kaingaroa (place name)

Layers of sedimentary rock

Kaingaroa

Flights delayed 16 hours. Weather still atrocious on arrival. Rain abated about 28 hours later. Toured 70% of the main island's roads - the North part.  We are staying at the extreme end of the road in the south-west (Tuku). Most roads are gravel and 4WD is advised in places.

Unlike the mainland where the sea and rivers have a publicly accessible riparian strip that belongs to the nation (we call it Crown Land), the Chathams are still all privately owned land held according to customary rights (many decided by land courts back in the 1850s). With rare exception permission is required from private landowners to venture onto any of the coastline or wander across land. Some have parcelled up land and gifted it to the nation as reserves where there is special scientific interest or species conservation (as in the case of the Parea - a rare wood pigeon, one of the world's  heaviest and about 1/5th heavier than the Kereru - the mainland species of wood pigeon). To protect and promote Parea population recovery, even these reserves are not routinely open to the public.