The art of living remotely
Kiwis used to living in isolation say it doesn’t have to be miserable, writes Sarah Catherall.
For the past seven months, Brooke Healey and Jacob de Vries and their two children have lived in isolation on a small island north of the Marlborough Sounds and west of the North Island.
They are reliant on a Department of Conservation boat which comes every four to six weeks to deliver their groceries and other supplies to Takapourewa, also known as Stephens Island.
De Vries is the DOC ranger on the 1.5 sq km island and nature reserve that’s comanaged by the department and Nga¯ ti Koata iwi. It is north of D’Urville Island.
As New Zealanders face being cut off from one another and now from the world, isolation is a daily reality for this couple and their children, Noah, 5, and Jade, 3.
Since they arrived, de Vries has only left the island once, when he had to go to into Blenheim for medical attention. To get anywhere, it takes them two hours to get into Havelock – their closest port on the mainland – and they can only do so when the DOC boat comes. To reach the boat, it’s a 30-minute walk down to the water’s edge, and once there, if they do need to hop on board, there is no jetty so Healey says: ‘‘We literally have to hop on a rock and jump onboard.’’
Says de Vries: ‘‘The boat can only come in on good days so we’ve had times where the groceries we order online turn up and the bananas have gone rotten and the lettuces are wilted.’’
Such extreme isolation means they’ve missed weddings and one funeral.
‘‘It’s a bit of an ordeal to leave and we have to find someone to
look after the place when we’re not here,’’ de Vries says.
Along with the delivered supplies, the family lives off veges from the garden, and the seafood he catches. ‘‘We’ve got kina, fish, pa¯ ua and blue cod teeming in the sea. The only thing I really miss is fresh venison,’’ he says.
It’s de Vries’ first isolated post, one he took on for 18 months to have more family time, as his last DOC post was in the Bay of Plenty, when he often had to go away for a couple of days at a time to trap possums and pests in the bush. The family have a home in the Bay of Plenty, which is already rural and isolated, but not to this extent.
Now, though, the most time he would get away from his family is about three hours.
‘‘Brooke and I are lucky we’ve got a really good relationship. Yeah, we watch a bit of Netflix at night,’’ he laughs.
Their biggest challenge, and what they miss most, is contact with family and friends. ‘‘I’ve also left my hunting dogs behind. I couldn’t attend my mates’ father’s funeral, and he was like my second dad.’’
In his role, he does biosecurity checks each day, and general custodian work. ‘‘The wilderness out here is insane. We’ve got 30,000 tuatara and all these incredible seabirds, which literally fly into you.’’
The ranger has made a video for friends struggling with the prospect of isolation, and social distancing.
‘‘I’m trying to tell them you don’t need to go to a restaurant to enjoy life. We’re so lucky in Aotearoa. We have the most incredible country.
‘‘It’s also really good to just get used to making do with what you’ve got. We look in the fridge and you just make a meal out of what you’ve got.’’
Healey works part-time and online for
Rotorua’s
Canopy Tours.
She and the children are holidaying at her parents’ home in the Bay of Plenty with the kids – her first break since they arrived last August. On the island, Healey finds it difficult without childcare or family to help with her kids. While she grew up on a dairy farm and is used to isolation, living on Takapourewa is next level. ‘‘You just can’t go out for a coffee. I can’t just catch up with my mates. I can’t send my kids to preschool. I’ve got friends on the mainland asking me for tips.’’
It’s a similar, but not as extreme story in the Awatere Valley, where Mary and Steve Satterthwaite have lived in relative isolation for almost three decades. Muller Station, a high country station, is one of the most remote in the north of the South Island.
On the 40,000-hectare station, sometimes Mary and Steve’s only company is each other now that their three adult children have left home. Their closest town is Hanmer Springs, 75km away, but it’s a schlep of a trip. Mary explains: ‘‘It’s not a great road and we have to open and close 14 gates.’’
About once a month they make the drive to Blenheim, 124km away. As Kiwis stock their cupboards and fridges and ‘‘panic buy’’, the Satterthwaites have spent almost three decades planning three months in advance.
Mary milks the cows daily, and they live off the vegetables and meat they produce on the farm.
Every Tuesday, the mail truck comes up the driveway with any groceries they order.
She bulk-buys 20kg of flour and sugar. However, the truck didn’t come for nine weeks when their road was closed after the Kaiko¯ ura earthquakes. ‘‘We’ve got a lot of stuff here though, so we don’t need to rush to the supermarket at the moment.’’
There are things Mary misses. Every time she goes to Christchurch, she treats herself with a Bikram yoga class. Despite coronavirus and its impact on the world, she has some advice: ‘‘People could do with living a bit simply. People don’t need all the things they have.’’
Their children are in their 20s, but Mary home-schooled them until they went to a prep school in Year 7, and they also set up a school with three families in the valley, whom they also socialised with. The children were never bored.
‘‘The kids had chores. After school, they got the firewood in and they had to feed the animals. Then they would go out on their pushbikes till dinner time.’’
Says Mary: ‘‘I don’t think we’re that isolated, but people would come here and hate it.
‘‘If we come home late at night off the farm, we can’t say, ‘Oh let’s get takeaways’.’’
‘‘People could do with living a bit simply.’’ Mary Satterthwaite, wife of Steve, above