In the footsteps of Scott on Quail Island
on stops. The walkway starts off following a gravel road, flanked by wind-blown trees, that hugs the coast. At the first bend is the dilapidated old jetty. An information board shows a fascinating old photograph of ponies being loaded from the jetty. It was from here that animals were transferred to Captain Scott’s ship, Terra Nova, for his ill-fated South Pole expedition in 1910.
Around the corner further history awaits. Here stands the restored barracks from the quarantine station that was built in 1874 and used until 1931. Because of the risk that immigrants carried diseases like measles and diphtheria, after three months at sea with lack of fresh food and exercise, new arrivals were housed here until cleared to travel to the mainland.
A side-track leads steeply up to the site of the dog quarantine area. A replica kennel was built in 1998 but old photographs show that most of the time the polar dogs from Siberia and the Yukon were tethered outside.
Dropping down to the main track we passed the remains of the foundations of the human quarantine quarters.
On a steep hillside we found a small hut, a replica of the huts that housed lepers in New Zealand’s first and only leprosy colony that was established in 1907. At its peak up to nine patients were living here, each in their own hut.
From the hut we followed a wide path down through an avenue of trees and then climbed steeply up to the saddest place on the island.
On a grassy hilltop is the grave of Ivon Skelton, a Western Samoan, who was the only leper to die on the island. He was sent here in 1918 and died in 1923. He was 25 years old. Old photographs show a tremendous view from the grave out to King Billy Island and Diamond Harbour and this view has recently been restored by the felling of a number of large trees.
Rising steeply up a mown grassy track we emerged out in the open, having left the crowds and the trees behind. Most of
the established trees – pines, cypresses, oaks and sycamores – on the island are confined to the western and southern sides. The centre and eastern and northern sides are largely open grassland interspersed with small shrubs and immature trees.
The next point of note as we walked high above Walkers Beach was a small quarry. Stone from here was used to build walls on the island and as ballast to stabilise early sailing ships for their return voyages after off-loading in Lyttleton harbour in the 1800s.
Wooden benches are stationed around the walkway at convenient intervals. One is rather nicely dedicated to Graeme White, a conservationist who ‘departed the island’ on 11 October 2007. After passing a small stand of mature trees we arrived at another bench that afforded a fine view down to a beach covered in shipwrecks.
Between 1902 and 1951 this beach was used as a ships’ graveyard and the remains of eight ships can be seen at low tide. The oldest is the steamer Mullogh, built in 1855. It plied its trade out of Lyttleton for fifty years and took miners to Hokitika during the 1870s gold rush before finally being beached here in 1923.
The largest wreck is the barque Darra which had a long and varied history following its launch in 1865. It was a tea clipper on the Orient Line, an Australian immigrant ship, was gutted by fire in Sydney in 1899 and was used in the reenactment of the arrival of the First Four Ships in Canterbury’s Centennial Celebrations in 1950 before being laid to rest here the following year. A well-worn but steep side path leads down the grassy slope to the beach for a closer look.