Motiti Island

My lovely upstairs neighbor Ross invited me up to dinner last Tuesday evening.  I never turn down a free feed, plus Ross is great company, plus he's on the 8th floor with a gorgeous view of the bay, plus he makes a MEAN greek salad!!

   Dinner conversation went as follows:

Ross:   I'm flying out to Motiti tomorrow.  You should pull a sickie and fly out with me and explore the island while I spray the avos.

Linz:  Whoa, really?  wow, cool!   I don't even need to call in sick--- I don't work Wednesdays.

Ross:  Even better!   Be ready at 730 tomorrow morning and we'll be back Thursday morning.

I had to rearrange a few little stuffs I had scheduled on Wednesday, but that was easily done.   After dinner, I packed my bag, and TRIED to sleep (so hard due to the excitement!).   The next morning we headed to the Tauranga airport to board our 4 seater plane, and after the ten minute flight, here we were--- Motiti Island!

 

What's so special about Motiti Island?  Well, it's quite small (4 square miles), pretty close to where I live (less than 15 miles away), and quite deserted (population 28).  It's not a place that many Kiwis get an opportunity to visit, so I had to go see it!

The pictures above and below were taken from the airplane.  Quite flat, which is a contrast to most of New Zealand's volcanic formed islands.

Here was the our landing strip for the plane.

Who needs lights lining the runway when you've got dandelions, eh? :)

My view from my seat in the plane--- cockpit jackpot!

The plane.   There's flights 3-4 times a day, only going if needed.

Here's our baggage claim :)

Just like that, our pilot was off back to the Mainland!  (about a 10 minute flight)

Here's the "airport parking lot".   There's the 28 people that regularly live here, and also people who come out occasionally (like Ross) to tend to their avocado farms or beehives.

Sharing is caring around Motiti, so I wouldn't be surprised if most of these cars were unlocked with the keys under the mat, so they can be used by more than one person.   Ross lets others use his van, and unfortunately when we got to it, it had a flat tire and wouldn't start!  Oh well, at least it wasn't far to walk to his place.

Speaking of which, check in out!  He calls it "The Hub".

Definitely more modern than I was expecting!  Ross is an engineer, and he built this all.    There's no power on the island, so he has solar lights, a gas fridge, a gas stove, and a generator.   He also built a bathroom with fully functioning toilet, sink and gas heated shower.  We definitely weren't roughing it... but I learned fast that this isn't the place to be if you're afraid of spiders.   In my short time on the toilet for a pee, I counted twelve spiders within eyesight.  :)

He built two cabins around two old campers.... so his place can easily sleep 15!

So Ross went off in the morning to his avocado orchard.

Yum.... avos!

The trees need to be sprayed to prevent against mites that do this to the leaves...

The avo orchard has some resident turkeys that aren't really pests at all and pretty much mind their own business...

So, Ross went off to spray, and I went exploring around the island.   Here is the pier, where ships come in, and the barge that periodically brings supplies when needed.

A lot of the coast is rocky, but here was one nice sandy beach I found.

Remember that container ship Rena that got stuck on a reef near me last year and spilled all that oil/containers into the sea?  Well it's not far from here at all (like only 2km away), and some of the oil/debris washed up onto this beach.

(all gone now thankfully)

Here is a pied stilt.  First time for me seeing one of these!

I went exploring around some of the rocky coast as well.  The rocks are bits of volcanic pumice stone, stuck all together.

Here's a view of the pier from a lookout on the coast.   There too is the barge that came in that morning (I missed the big island excitement of the day of it coming in!). 

Ross and I met back at "The Hub" for lunchtime, then he asked me to give him a ride back out to the orchard.   I got to drive him out in this John Deere Gator.  How fun!

Oh, did I mention there are no roads on the island?   No businesses either.   No stores, no shops, no  restaurants, no pubs, no gas stations.... nada.  Apparently a doctor gets flown out every few weeks for a day to handle the locals' medical care.   Ross introduced me to one gentleman (probably in his 70s) that was born on the Island, and probably hasn't been to the mainland in 3 or 4 years!

After I dropped Ross off, he gave me permission to have a go picking some avos.  There were heaps already on the ground!   It was like an adult Easter Egg hunt, and I was the only participant!

I loaded up the Gator with these beauties, and brought them back to The Hub.

I picked all levels of ripeness so they could be used over the next week or so.

Did you know you could store ripened avos in the fridge, and they'll keep an extra 2-3 days?

 

Off for more more costal exploring... this time it was closer to low tide.

I found this little cave on the left...

And found these creepy crawly crabs inside.

Here's Ross slaving over the bbq/stove cooking our pork chops for dinner! yummm...

We rushed through dinner to head out to a lookout point to catch the end of the sunset.   Mount Maunganui on the right, the Kaimai Mountains in the background/on the left.

Some of Ross's friends joined us for company after dinner.  They have some beehives on the island and were working all day collecting honey.  As I was thoroughly entertained by their stories of beekeeping and honey collecting,...

NEK MINNIT  (a Kiwi saying).....

A tree stump next to the stove was profusely smoking--- like glowing orange on the bottom!   Some embers from the fire must've flicked off and caught the stump aglow!   Ross's friend got the hose and it took a good 10-15 minutes of spraying to put that baby out.   No flames, but it was a close call!    If that would've caught fire for real, we would've been doomed!

(As you can imagine, no fire hose/fire station etc etc on an island of 28 people!)

Well after the smokin tree trunk was taken care of, I soon retired to bed.  Slept GREAT in that little camper thing!  The next morning we had breakfast, cleaned up the place, and boarded the little plane again to head back home.

We wanted to see it a little closer, but our pilot was on a tight schedule for time....Here's as close as we got to the Rena container ship (which has now broke in half!)

Just under 10 minutes and we were home back to Mount Sweet Mount.

What an absolutely fantastic impromptu Wednesday adventure!  Thank you Ross for the invite and an amazing day and night on Motiti Island....From now on, whenever I eat an avo, I will think of you!