* (PEACEFUL MUSIC) Lying 750km to the east of New Zealand's South Island, the Chatham Islands are the last smattering of land between New Zealand and Chile. Chatham Island itself is home to some 600 people ` peaty, windswept, its centre given over to the vast Te Whanga Lagoon. (MAJESTIC MUSIC) This, though, is Pitt Island, home to 45 permanent residents. It's the first scrap of land on Planet Earth to greet the rising sun. I'm on the summit of Mt Hakepa. And just look ` here comes the sun. (MAJESTIC MUSIC CONTINUES) As we explore all that the Chathams have to offer, Michael Stevens hears how the Germans infiltrated the island's waters. And they were woken suddenly by the sound of gunfire. But what she remembers more than that was the panic. Ocean Mercier samples Cook's scurvy grass. Hmm, salty. Mm. And Jacky Geurts hangs on with the baby albatross. Almost lost my finger on that one. (LAUGHS) We're on the Chatham Islands, and this is Coast New Zealand. (GRAND MUSIC) Captions by Jean Teng. www.able.co.nz Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2018 Our Chatham Island expedition includes The Pyramid and Pitt Island, across to Point Gap, heads north-west to Cape Pattisson and over French Reef to Te Whakuru. New Zealanders are famously proud of their small but perfectly formed country. But what if this little clutch of islands was actually part of something much, much bigger. It started with a casual observation and led to a significant scientific discovery, at the centre of which stands our very own Dr Hamish Campbell. My work has brought me to the Chathams on a regular basis since the 1970s. Such are the geological riches they have to offer. On one trip, as I flew over Owenga, I noticed something unusual. Unlike New Zealand's topography, Chatham Island is more or less devoid of steep-sided gorges, which you would expect to see, if in fact, this was, as always thought, land that broke away from Gondwana in the Cretaceous Period. A theory was forming, and further evidence was provided one year later by my colleague, Nick Mortimer, who was on a dredging mission aboard the research ship, Sonne. One day, we were about... 150km east of here, east of the Chatham Islands, right on the very tip of Chatham Rise, and we did another dredge, expecting to get the rock basalt, black basalt, and instead, much to our surprise, we got granite. Granite? Granite. The stuff of continents. (LAUGHS) The stuff of continents. And I've got a piece of it here. Oh, fantastic. We analyse that, and we dated it, and we had a match with some granites on land, South Island. That really started to allow me to join the dots, in terms of thinking there's a bigger continent out here, a bigger submerged continent. That continent would come to be known as Zealandia. It stretches north as far as New Caledonia, south beyond the subantarctic Auckland and Campbell islands, west beyond Lord Howe Island, and to the east of the relatively shallow but submerged Chatham Rise. (DARK, DRAMATIC MUSIC) The Chatham Islands are an important geological outpost of Zealandia, further illustrated by the spectacular basalt columns at Ohira Bay. Why does it matter, Nick? What is the significance of Zealandia? Oh, it's very important. It really gives a new take on New Zealand's earthquakes and volcanoes. It's important for biologists because of the story of New Zealand's native flora and fauna ` how they've here, how they've survived here. Right. They're not just the fauna and flora of a country, but of a continent. Continent, yes. And finally, I think Zealandia illustrates that the large and obvious in science can be overlooked. The elephant in the room. That's right. So I think there's an inspirational aspect to Zealandia as well. There's plenty more out there to discover. So there we have it ` essentially a revision of the natural environment in which New Zealand exists. And to have a continental identity gives us weight and importance. However, Nick and I did not reach this conclusion alone. Here in the Chatham Islands, I have a secret weapon. (SOFT PIANO MUSIC) In the shadow of a volcano that erupted some five million years ago sits this historic stone cottage ` a farmhouse hand-built in the 1860s that has no power, it's miles from any neighbour and it's home to my dear friend and erstwhile collaborator, Helen Bint. Hello. What a day. Just over the dunes from Helen's home is Maunganui Beach, an isolated stretch that throws up scores of fossilised sponges. Wow. (CHUCKLES) Another vital clue to the formation of Zealandia. So, Helen, when's the best time to come? The most perfect time to come looking for anything and these fossilised sponges is just after a big storm, because everything gets turned over. And yesterday and the day before, there were big storms. In fact, I haven't been down here for a week, so I hope that it was low tide enough to have a good look today and everything is turned over. It's just amazing. You don't know where to look first. Yeah. But it's very exciting when I do find when, because I always say, 'Oh, Hamish is gonna love this one.' (LAUGHS) Good stuff. Yeah. Shall we go down and have a hunt? Yes, go down and have a look. See if we can find anything. One of the many difficulties establishing the history of Zealandia is working out the water depth of key rock formations. This is why Helen's fossil sponges are so important. (PIANO MUSIC) Oh, that's good. That's great. Perfect. So that's a different one again, isn't it? Yeah. We know that this rock is from a formation that's at least 60 million years old ` between 60 and 62 million years old. Amazing, isn't it? Yeah. And these sponges are very similar to modern day sponges that live in water depths on the Chatham Rise between 200m and 400m` 200m-500m water depth. So, we can be absolutely certain that 60 million years ago, this part of the world was completely under the sea. Gosh. Wow. That's... Perhaps as much as 500m. This is a wonderful specimen, Helen. I know it's one of many. You've got so many in that fabulous collection of yours. And I just want to say, you're contributing greatly to our understanding of the history of Zealandia in this part of the world. So we couldn't do this without you. (CHUCKLES) Well, I'm learning too. (CHUCKLES) Well, let's go find some more. Mm. OK. Head this way. Everything we see in the Chathams, including Helen's fossil sponges, reveals something of the long and complex history of Zealandia ` a story of growth, stretching, break-up, immersion, collision and emergence. And just as the continent has changed through time, so have we, its inhabitants ` mere passengers on a giant, northward moving ark. Coming up ` when the sea strikes back. There are documented accounts of hearing the roar coming before they felt the wave come through their house. * (SERENE MUSIC) As the last major Pacific islands to be settled, the Chathams are thought to have been first occupied by Polynesian voyagers between 800 and 1000 years ago. Two brothers came from Eastern Polynesia. One sailed to Aotearoa, while the elder settled here on the Chathams. And his descendants would come to be known as the Moriori. Very little survives of the time when the Moriori had this place to themselves ` the time before the whalers and the sailors, the farmers and the missionaries, and before the arrival of Maori in 1835. (SOLEMN MUSIC) Some of the few physical manifestations of their ancestral family members, rare and precious, though they have survived here on the Chathams. But they are staring down the barrel of extinction. Once upon a time, the islands were covered in these trees, kopi, known in New Zealand as karaka. Among them, trunks bearing rare engravings, or rakau momori. Moriori elder Tom Lanauze has been visiting these remnants of the kopi forest ever since he was a small boy. What is actually here? What's being depicted on the tree trunk? I think that a lot of the carvings that are on the trees represent ancestors that have passed on. In our old writings there is mention that the placenta from the births and that are buried in or around these carvings. So, um, carvings were done of those people. Are these unique to the Chatham Islands? They are very, very similar in some ways to carvings from the Pacific. But the carvings that are done here are unique to here. So they're a Chatham Island style. Yes, definitely. You know, you said carving but has it been cut in? Yeah, we seem to think that it was actually a marking. So instead of being chiselled out of the tree, it's bruised by some sort of an object, may it be a piece of harder stick because the mark has not been lifted out of the trunk, you might say. Right. Mm. However they did it, it stays. Yeah. Yeah. And whether they've put something into those marks, may it be wood ash from fires, charcoal, and rub that into it. Or it may be that it was charcoal mixed with whale blubber or blackfish oil and then put in. But all those things are still to be discovered. Yeah. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. When surveyed in the 1950s, the rakau momori numbered over 1000. Today, just 100 remain, with the rest falling victim to roaming stock and the ever-present threat of peat fires. So, what can be done to preserve them and, you know, make sure that no more are lost? My first thing to do is, we've ring fenced the entire bush and we've kept the stock out of this. We have predator control happening in the bush. We try to encourage the bird life to the bush. This is a very sacred, tapu place. There's only the carvings that are here. There's the midden on the ground here where the people have opened tuatua, where they've lived. You know, there were dozens of people living here, and they harvested all their kaimoana and that from just over the hill here. And when the old people passed on, they were interment in the dunes up here. All right. So, you know, it's a very, very special place. The precise meaning of those enigmatic tree markings remains unclear. But this much we do know ` when they're gone, they're gone forever, and the descendants of the Moriori are determined to make sure that doesn't happen. This is Okawa Point, the north-easterly extreme of Chatham Island, which is itself New Zealand's most easterly outpost. That places the archipelago in a uniquely precarious position when it comes to tsunamis. Those huge rocks behind me, each the size of a parked van, were flung here by gigantic waves that swamped the island, and all around me is evidence of similarly catastrophic events. Maori scientist Ocean Mercier investigates. I recall an old korero in which a boy asks his grandfather, 'How can I fight the taniwha?' To which koro replies, 'First, you must get to know the taniwha.' By studying past tsunami activity, Chatham Islander and scientist Kristie-Lee Thomas is doing just that. What makes the Chatham Islands so vulnerable to tsunami? The Chathams are exposed on all sides to tsunami impact, from local, regional and distant sources. The local sources are less than an hour's travel distance way and come from sources like faults off the Chatham Rise or submarine landslides. And then we have our regional sources which are between one and three hours travel distance away, and they come from the Hikurangi Subduction Zone, offshore Gisborne, the Kermadec Trench. And then we have our distant sources which are greater than three hours time distance away. Our most frequent distant source tsunami is from South America, so the Peruvian Subduction Zone, and they're about 12 hours travel distance away. Tsunami's travel in open water about 800km/hr, so as fast as a jet plane. And so it wouldn't take long for a tsunami, once it hits the Chathams, to get to New Zealand. If a tsunami is generated around the Chathams, like off the Chatham Rise, it wouldn't give much time for New Zeeland. Today, a solitary stone fireplace in a remote corner of the Chatham Islands is all that remains as evidence of New Zealand's most recent fatal tsunami. When the big wave hit soon after 1am on the 15th of August 1868, the fireplace was in one of two European-style houses in the thriving village of Tupuangi. Back in the day in 1868, this area was covered in bush, native bush, and there were some European houses here made of sort of bricks and stone, and then there were Maori whares at a pa, or a Maori village, further along the coast, and they would have been made of ponga and timber. And the tsunami came in and washed everything away that was in its path. What would that have looked and sounded like, do you think? So it would have been probably a great roar from the ocean. There are documented accounts of hearing the roar coming before they felt the wave come through their house. Tsunamis happen all the time ` they're just not all equal. So tsunamis can be centimetres to tens of metres and we have got better technology now so we can detect those earthquakes and tsunamis that are generated and we get warnings for them. In what ways do you think we are more prepared now? Well, if we figure out what's happened in the past, we can then be more informed about what might happen again in the future. So we might know more about where tsunamis are likely to come from, how long they take to get here and what kind of impacts might occur again. As inhabitants of an island nation, we all have a heightened sense of awareness around the threat of tsunami. But here in the Chathams, that danger is clear and present. Kristie-Lee's work is vital in making sure that we are forewarned and forearmed. Coming up ` behind the scenes of an extraordinary initiative. The best way to kill these birds would be to feed them cold food. * * There's no Catholic church further from the Vatican, geographically speaking at least, than this one ` Our Lady of the Antipodes on Pitt Island. With a population of 45 people, you might wonder at the need for a Catholic church here. Nevertheless, its construction in 1974 was a real community affair led by Parish Priest Father Noonan who went as far as making the concrete blocks himself. The church was considered important enough to warrant New Zealand's then-Prime Minister, Norman Kirk, travelling to Pitt Island for its grand opening. (SOLEMN HYMN) It does say in the Bible that the gospel is to be carried to the ends of the earth. So it's a little bit surprising that it didn't come here, to the literal ends of the earth, until 1974. (SOLEMN HYMN CONTINUES) The Maori call Chatham Islands Rangiauria or glowing clouds at sunset, whilst the Moriori name, Rekohu, loosely translates as 'sun seen through the mist'. (INSPIRING MUSIC) Poetic as that sounds, the conditions are rugged rather than romantic, and it can be a struggle for endemic species to thrive. At Point Gap in the island's south-west is a sanctuary taking bold steps to future-proof a rare seabird. Jacky Geurts pays a visit. For an albatross chick, its home is its castle. But when your home is an inhospitable rock in the middle of the ocean, it might be wise to have a plan B. (SOFT PIANO MUSIC) The vulnerable Chatham Island albatross breeds in only one place, The Pyramid, a privately owned rock in the Chatham Islands. Taiko Trust project manager Mike Bell thinks their chances of survival would be greatly improved if they had a second place to call home. Having all your eggs in one basket, and in this case, the basket is an isolated rock in the Southern Ocean, just leaves them vulnerable to a whole range of threats to them and albatross are the most at threat family of bird that exists in the whole globe. So we're basically trying to future-proof them by developing a second colony that can thrive and grow cos one theory is that The Pyramid's full and it can't have any more birds, so actually to increase that population size, we're better getting them in a location like this where there's deeper soil and so therefore, the colony's going to be more robust to withstand the severe weather events that are predicted in the next 50 to 100 years for the Chathams. So, how did the birds get here? Oh, that's a... (CHUCKLES) mission. Is it? Actually, to be honest, yeah. The Pyramid's the hardest island in the Chathams to land on. Fortunately, we've got a really good skipper here who takes us down ` he's fished around there his whole life ` and then land a crew ashore. We select the chicks, so we weigh and measure each chick, and then, yeah, we box them up, we carry them back down the cliffs, and then on to a Naiad and then out to the fishing boat. And that all sounds pretty easy, but when there's a 2m or 3m swell rolling, it's, you know, a lot trickier than that. Mike and his team translocate 60 chicks each year from an estimated population of 5000 albatross. We bring the birds ashore here and then we carry them down to their nests. It's basically a plant pot. We use that to replicate the nest. They quickly adopt these new nests as theirs. And then every day, we'll come down and feed them. The fatter a seabird chick is, the better it is for it on its first flight to sea. So, yeah, we aim just to give them what they require to develop into fat, healthy chicks. So why do all this? 99.9% of seabirds return to where they fledge from to breed. There's lots of different theories on how they do that, and, to be honest, we don't really know. So we're bringing them back here and we'll have them here for the three months and hope that in that time they'll learn that here is home. And then when they head out to sea, these guys go for five years before they'll return back. And basically, we'll hope that GPS is reprogrammed ` that they'll think here's home, and they'll come back to here to breed rather than to The Pyramid, and that'll establish a new population of them on this island at this site. (ALBATROSS CALL FROM SPEAKER) The feeding of the translocated bird is a labour intensive business that starts before daybreak with the careful preparation of their breakfast. The best way to kill these birds would be to feed them cold food, so we need to warm it up, and it's important that we warm it to the right temperature. So, this side? Yep. Yep. (ALBATROSS TRILLS) All right, keep pushing a bit. As soon as he starts` Ooh, yep, all right. A bit too soon? (LAUGHS) Shouldn't really let him go, but that's good. I felt he got in. Got away a little bit. (LAUGHS) Ooh. Almost lost my finger on that one. (LAUGHS) Their parents would ordinarily be feeding them a partly digested slurry of oils and fish chunks and squid things, which is also really super, super rich, and those chicks are only getting fed, say, every five days. We can't replicate that food in any way. There's nothing we can give them that's as grunty as that. So we make that up for in volume. So we feed our birds every day. So over a week, they're getting the same number of calories, but we're just giving them every day rather than every five days. He didn't swallow that. The tail's still there. Is that all right? Ah, nah, that'll be good. It'll go down with this. OK. There's so many steps to this process that you really need to focus on each one. Yeah, you do, and you need to keep that focus till the very last bird. (ALBATROSS CALLS) Good God. (BOTH LAUGH) He's very... No, no, they won't get ya. ...enthusiastic, this one. Cool. What you've sort of seen today, feeding the birds is the nice bit in the middle that we do, and, you know, you haven't seen the three years of planning and then all the planning during the winter to get the fish here, and then us getting up at 5.30 in the morning to start prepping it and then the two hours of washing up everything afterwards, and then, yeah, all the people involved in doing it. So, yeah, it is a pretty huge undertaking. It's an absolute dream come true to be able to come here and do my little bit in helping this dedicated team in their labour of love in getting these birds fit for flight. Coming up ` the scandalous sinking of the Ocean Mail. So, it's got all the elements for a great shipwreck tale. You've got everything, haven't ya? And it's all just out here. Just right on your doorstep. * (GRAND MUSIC) The symptoms of scurvy sound like something from a horror movie. According to notes kept by one clearly traumatised ship's captain, the victim's skin would turn as black as ink. His whole body would break out in suppurating ulcers. His limbs would be rigid with rictus. Perhaps worst of all, his teeth would fall out, but not before his gums had swollen and sprouted, and all that additional flesh would instantly begin to rot, giving that victim the most appalling breath. It's just hideous. And it was the thing most likely to kill you if you were at sea between the 15th and 18th centuries. Ocean Mercier goes in search of a cure. The plague of the sea has claimed millions of lives, yet it's entirely preventable and treatable. Captain James Cook was widely credited with conquering the scourge, employing a regiment of cleanliness, fresh air and a vitamin-rich diet. Most importantly, Cook encouraged his naturalists, such as Daniel Solander and Joseph Banks to identify edible plants to help combat the disease. And that's where the Chatham Islands come in. Botanist Peter de Lange picks up where Cook's team left off. What are we looking for here? Well, we're standing in the middle of a large population of one of New Zealand's most threatened plants. What's that? It's one of Cook's scurvy grasses. Oh. Tell me about the name. We all know about Captain Cook, and we know about his crusade to stop scurvy amongst his crew. But one of the things people may not know about Cook ` he came from a very poor family, and so to supplement their diet, they used to forage in the commons around where they lived. And one of the things that they liked to eat in Britain was a thing they called scurvy grass. And so Cook knew that there were plants you could eat that would help your diet. And when they got to New Zealand, one of the plants that they picked up was very closely related to the scurvy grass in Europe, which is in the genus Cochlearia. These one's are in the genus Lepidium, but they're all in the cabbage family. (LIGHT MUSIC) There we go. There's quite a big one here. Yeah. This one's still in flower, and it's setting some seed. Would you like to try some? Yeah. Thank you. See what you think of that. Hm, salty. Mm, quite salty, but getting that peppery hint coming over now? Hm, peppery too. This one is unique to Chatham and Antipodes Islands. It's always associated with seals. So if you find a good seal colony, it's always worth looking for it. Are there threats to this plant? Sadly, many. I mean, the most obvious thing has been the loss of its ecosystem ` the loss of seabirds, the loss of seals has meant that there's been a big crash in the Cook's scurvy grass group's abundance. These animals create the habitat this plant needs to grow in, and they stop competition from taller plants. But they also help distribute it. They spread the seeds around to establish new populations. So particularly, if we lose those seabirds, we're going to lose these plants. But in the short term, there are other factors too. We're just beginning to realise, with the advent of DNA sequencing, that many of the Lepidium plants in New Zealand are actually suffering from a range of viruses and diseases like this one here, which is a bit of an enigma to us. You see these white blisters on the leaves and on the flowers and fruits. Looks like a fungus. Yeah. That's not a fungus, although it's often called white rust or white smut, and this disease attacks anything in the cabbage family, and it seems to have zeroed in on all of our Lepidiums. And this one in particular is one of the reasons why we can't grow it in cultivation. It just gets the disease and dies. A lot of work needs to be done before we have a satisfactory way of dealing with that disease issue. We don't have scurvy any more, so why is this plant still important? Scurvy grass as a group ` they've got history. There's a culture tied to it; it's got mana. These are plants that iwi recognised a long time ago as very important. I think New Zealand would be a really poor place if all we have is marram grass and macrocarpa trees and ragwort. I think we've got to celebrate our diversity, and that's why I'm gonna put a plug in for scurvy grass. Cook's scurvy grass may be small, but it's not insignificant. It's one of our rarest plants. Clinging precariously to life on these rocks, surrounded by seals, it's weighted with a history of the bad old days when a trip to sea could lead to a grisly demise. (JAUNTY STRING MUSIC) I'm not a betting man, but if I were, and I caught wind of a boat race from the bottom of the world to London, my money would be on the Kiwis to take it out, no question. So what went so wrong back in 1877 that the Ocean Mail was a mere five days into her duel with the good ship Avalanche when she foundered at French Reef on the northern reaches of Chatham Island. Matt Carter is determined to get to the bottom of this scandalous sea-going saga. Maritime archaeology has got so much to tell us about New Zealand's past. So when I hear about a shipwreck that hasn't been surveyed before, that definitely gets my attention. Local fisherman and history lover Kevan Clarke spills the beans on how this glorious vessel met her inglorious end. Gidday. So, how's this tale begin? Well, it begins with a race on a couple of ships from Wellington to London. And they had a wager on which vessel would arrive in London the quickest. So here's a photo which shows you the type of vessel that was racing, and it's just a three-mast clipper made of steel ` a very large, old clunky vessel. So not exactly what we conjure up when we think of racing ship. Definitely not America Cup style. All right. Don't be deceived, though. With the right winds, this ship was quick for its time, capable of completing the journey from New Zealand to the UK in 79 days. So, how do you end up here, Kev? They were going neck and neck for most of the trip, and then they parted company on the way to the Chatham Islands, and they hit a storm ` a very strong northerly ` and the skipper, the captain, actually got his navigation wrong, and because of that, it came in far too close to the Chatham Islands and founded on the reef just out here, just marooned there at 2 o'clock in the morning. And what happened to the passengers and crew? They got safely off with the little boats and came ashore. The Ocean Mail was laden with highly prized wool and tallow, which was immediately commandeered by a forward-thinking local who on sold it for a massive profit. So it's got all the elements for a great shipwreck tale. Well, it has. It has, because you've got the race, the bet, the wager, and then you've got the mishap, and then you've got the profiteering at the end of it. You've got everything, haven't ya? And it's all just out here. Just right on your doorstep. Local dive master Floyd Prendeville has made regular visits to the site. He's volunteered to give me a guided tour. What are we gonna see today? So we're gonna go out to a reef formation called French Reef. And we're gonna go and have a look at the Ocean Mail. On the reef system, there's the ribcage, and the way that it's laid on the reef, you can see aft and the bow, and there's quite a lot of it still left there, and a lot of marine life around it too, so it should be a good dive. Cool. Should we go have a look? Sounds good. The wreck of the Ocean Mail is a well-kept secret. Local fishermen, like Floyd, visit in search of crayfish and paua. Tourists and recreational divers ` not so much. The Ocean Mail wasn't even 10 years old when she was wrecked. Sturdily constructed in 1869, she was 63m long and made to last. (MYSTERIOUS MUSIC) Take a look at this. This is one of the iron masts. You can see ` completely hollow, allowed the ship to sail incredibly fast and hold as much sail as possible. Now, this is something you don't normally see ` part of the rigging. It's called a deadeye, and these artefacts aren't usually found on shipwrecks that commonly. I'll add my findings to the New Zealand Archaeological Association site recording database, an ongoing project which promotes research into archaeology. 140 years ago, the Ocean Mail was tipped as an early winner in a race from Wellington to London. But it wasn't to be and she ended here on the Chatham Islands ` a reminder that sometimes maximum risk does not equal maximum reward. Coming up ` the day the Germans came to town. One of the raiders fired a warning shot, put up a German flag and ordered the Holmwood to stop. * Being so very far from the vagaries of Northern Hemisphere politics affords an element of protection to the people of New Zealand, even more so the Chathams. So surely people here would never imagine they could fall prey to foreign invaders. But truth is stranger than fiction, as historian Michael Stevens discovers. Not a lot is known about a series of deadly raids, conducted in the Pacific by undercover German warships in the earlier stages of World War II. A fleet of German raiders, like Maritime Transformers, were disguised as neutral trading ships. They can change their appearance in the blink of an eye, catching unsuspecting victims off guard. Australian author and historian Stephen Robinson is an expert on these mysterious ships, three of which ` the Komet, the Orion and the Kulmerland ` made their way to the Chathams. Gidday, Michael. How are ya? Very good, thank you. So, describe these ships for us. They're in war. Are they warships? Well, the Germans essentially took ordinary freighters and converted them in dockyards into warships by putting in weapons and torpedo tubes and then the aircraft guns. But these were all very carefully hidden from view in false compartments, so to the outside world, they appeared to just be ordinary freighters sailing under neutral flags, but when they came into a combat situation, they'd take the false flag down, they'd put the German flag up, and all of a sudden, these secret compartments would open up, guns would swing out. So in a matter of seconds, they'd go from an innocent looking merchant ship to a raider firing warning shots telling other ships to stop or face destruction. And what exactly were these ships doing right here in the Chatham Islands? Well, those two German raiders ` the Komet and the Orion with the supply ship Kulmerland were hoping to intercept shipping from Australia and New Zealand going to Britain through the Panama Canal. In their path was a small merchant ship, oblivious to its imminent fate. So, tell us about the Holmwood. The Holmwood left here, and as soon as the sun was setting, it came across three ships almost immediately after leaving port, just over the horizon. And eventually the captain was brought above deck. By the time the captain arrived to assess the situation, he saw what appeared to be three Japanese freighters. Then one of the raiders started approaching and fired a warning shot, put up a German flag and ordered the Holmwood to stop. So what does the captain do? He realises this is not good ` this is a bad day at the office. Yeah. What does he do? Captain James Miller of the Holmwood was under strict orders that if he was to come across suspicious ships, he was immediately supposed to flee the scene and send out radio messages to warn the rest of the world that there's a German raider active. However, he decided to surrender his ship to save the lives of his crew. Travelling alongside Captain Miller's crew were a handful of fare-paying passengers, including Rewi and Hetty Idiens and their two daughters, Te Miria and Wendy. The family were headed to a new life in Christchurch. Te Miria's daughter, Lynley McKerrow, is visiting the Chatham Islands for the first time and recounts the legendary tale of her mother's World War II adventure. Gidday, Lynley. Hello, Michael. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too. So, the kids have got their PJs on, they've brushed their teeth, they've been put to bed. Then what happens? They were woken suddenly by the sound of gunfire. And there was only, I understand, she has told me, only one shot, and that was all she remembers. But what she remembers more than that was the panic ` the getting ready, the sound of strange voices, the running of the feet around the ship. And then she knew that something was wrong. So the Holmwood's boarded by armed German sailors. Yes. They're instructed to get together only what they can carry. Mm-hm. But everything else that they owned which was down in the hold ` they couldn't take any of it. The Holmwood's passengers and crew were then transferred to the Komet, and their internment commenced. At 11, she was considered old enough to climb on to the ship herself. So Wendy was taken across in a basket, whereas Mum had to climb up like the adults. So she was the oldest of the children on the boat at the time, and she said that was really quite frightening. Here was the steep side of the ship, and she was really terrified. Once they were aboard, the Holmwood was sunk. To this day, the wreck has not been found. So your family are prisoners of war. Does that mean they were poorly treated? No. Not by any stretch of the imagination. They were friendly, and they treated the children very well. And they were gifted with` My mother was given some gifts. And this is the book that was given to Mum by the German sailors. And the lovely part about it ` it's the original book. It was published in 1940, and inside are these wonderful signatures here of the German sailors. And if you look here, it says, 'For remembrance...' and, I mean, I think that says a great deal ` '...of the south sea voyage.' And I believe that word is 'together'. Mm-hm. And really embodies the kindness she experienced of those German sailors. And I don't think there is a person that was on board, a prisoner on any of those ships, that can say they were badly treated. Te Miria and her family spent five weeks under the Germans watch until overcrowding became an issue as further vessels were scuttled and their passengers taken prisoner. Eventually, the captors ran out of food, or patience, and released their charges on Emirau Island in Papua New Guinea, from where Te Miria's family were rescued. They arrived, belatedly, in Christchurch. So, Lyn, the Chathams were very special to your mother. Did she ever make it back here? Lots of times. And her greatest desire was to come and live here. Sadly, she didn't. But she is buried here. Her ashes her brought back and she's been laid to rest here, the very ground that she loved so dearly. Oh, how wonderful. Mm. So she did come home. Sadly, not to live the life she wanted to, but she did come home. When the Holmwood encountered the Comet, it was a meeting of two disparate worlds ` one a small merchant ship, carrying an 11-year-old girl off to a new life in mainland New Zealand. The other, a German warship, but one who's captain and crew were sailors above all else. (MAJESTIC MUSIC) New Zealand ` country of contrasts ` offers so much in such a small space. And on the Chatham Islands, that sense is further condensed. Remote, yet close-knit, it's first to see the light, but with a complex history that hints at darkness. On arrival, you put your watch forward 45 minutes, but it's more like stepping back in time. Copyright Able 2018