🚀 go-pugleaf

"Graeme Butler" <taurangadolphins@clear.net.nz> wrote in message
news:3c0acf5c@clear.net.nz...
> My trip to Chatham was an adventure.
>
> The Bristo Freighter had huge doors in front that gave access to the cargo
> hold.  This aircraft had a modified pod with seats and sound insulation
and
> the windows lined up with the portholes on the fusilage.
>
> The flight was long, 350 or 400 miles and we were not that high, 3000 feet
> comes to mind. able to see the seas breaking anyway.
>
> After about four hours we sighted the island and landed on a paddock
> airstrip and the aircraft taxied to a concrete pad.
>
> This pad had apparently been built after one or two incidents of the
> aircraft sinking into the peat up to the wheel axles and having to be
> extricated wit a great deal of difficulty.
>
> I went from the airstip to a very isolated sheep station, one of the
oldest
> Chatham Island homes.  In the attic were instruments, and other bits and
> peices of a Sunderland that struck a log in the lagoon, puncturing a float
> and then being written off by the Government.  Bits of this Sunderland are
> spread among the farms and homes of Chatham.  A propeller is set in
concrete
> outside of the post office building.
>
> Other passengers on the flight included a Fisheries inspector and a number
> of fishermen on their way to court in Chatham, for various offenses.
Others
> were joining boats fishing in the area.
>
> A returning local asked me whare I was going, I told them I was on my way
to
> Manage A big Sheep station down there, His response was....Hey Guys, this
> poor bastard is going to manage Spannerhead's place.
>
> Everyone gathered around and offered me huge sympathy, it seemsed that
> Spanner head was a well known, well judged local nutter with a ferocious
> reputation.
>
> Itr was an adventure.  Sorry about the rave but the memory of flying in
that
> rattly old aircraft so far out into the Southern Ocean is one of my
> favourites.

Nice vignette - thanks.