Kapiti 2

The family who own the lodge and land at the north end of the island trace their lineage back to a Maori chief who seized the land from another Maori tribe in the1800's. However, I think the genes must be quite mixed now because the matriarch who runs the lodge told me that there are Cornish men amongst her ancestors; people who had the surnames of Pratt and Martin.

Looking across bay at Maori homestead

The Lodge

The family did not, like the others on the island, sell their land to European settlors, and so were able to hold onto it, and continue to farm it, when the rest of the island was returned to native bush. The elderly lady, clearly head of the family but whose name we were never sure about ( it might be Minnie) would accept no criticism of this resistance to the restoration of the island to to its natural state, pointing out that the the farming had kept the family fed,and, she said, paid for the children to go to good boarding schools.


Now farming has stopped even on the Maori land but the family runs the lodge, or guesthouse, business and various members have holiday homes there.
The day we arrived Minnie told us that she went 'to New Zealand' rarely and reluctantly but needed to make one of these trips soon to get her hair cut and look at gas fridges. She could survive for at least a year she said without anything the mainland could offer. If you didn't have to go, ' why would you?' was her comment.  But she thought she might venture there the next day.
The following morning we saw Minnie arrive at the Lodge looking full of purpose and carrying a handbag and shopping bag. She disappeared around a corner. Some 10 minutes later we saw her again, carrying a load of bedding - and without the bags. It seemed that New Zealand could wait for another day.