The First Sunrise of 2000A.D.
The first sunrise of the new millennium, January 1st, 2000, Mount Hakepa, Pitt Island, Chatham Islands, New Zealand. (Photo by Don Armitage ©). The Chatham Islands lie in the Roaring Forties (44th parallel) 800km east of Christchurch and 4 degrees east of the 180th meridian of longitude. By long convention these islands have been the first inhabited place to see the new day in. With forty or so others I was on Mt Hakepa, an old Volcano riddled with deep gas vents, on Pitt Island (12 miles to the south south-east of the main island of Wharekauri) to see in the first sunrise of 2000 at 0544-43 local time.
 A few days before several of us were invited aboard the Russian Ice-breaker Akademic Chykelski anchored a mile off 6500 hectare Pitt Island's northern coast. It is a chartered vessel out of Vladivostok that takes paying passengers to the Antarctic and many of the Southern Ocean islands every summer. It even had a lecture theatre and library. The crew where mainly Russian.
The day before, two Lear jets came separately out of the west to slowly circle Hakepa. A helicopter arrived and took some locals for a tour about, and in doing so, sighted a large white pointer shark just beyond the breakers nearby where Pilot Whales had stranded. Nine miles out are the Star Keys that are home to a colony of fur seals which attract those same white pointers. Closer by is South-East Island, again with a seal colony on it, upon which Don Merton of Black Robin and Kakapo fame was camped to guard against any over-curious visitors. On a dirty night more than a million seabirds can land there. I can attest to a lack of sleep from the noise of penguins when anchoring off there for the night.
Seven weeks work had gone into constructing a road up the rocky slopes of Hakepa, known locally as 'Walk-em-up'. A group of Americans from Pennsylvania, representing the 8th largest advertising company in the world, arrived by fishing boat. They set up satellite communications and later stayed the night on Hakepa under canvas. By 3-30am we had unloaded vehicles onto the beach from the motorised barge. Reporters from the Chicago Tribune, London Sunday Times, and Canada's national paper the Globe and Mail were also circulating, competing for internet connections for their copy. Meanwhile, with locals under greater strain than normal, 70 cattle were shipped across Pitt Strait, farmers got 2700 sheep ready, and woolbales brought in for the imminent visit of the ship Ngamaru III. Wekas held noisy 4am conventions outside our tents.
On the 31st December, there was a big gathering, music dancing and food in a woolshed below the mountain. The bonfire at midnight was a lively affair, seabirds circling overhead in and out of the light, and the party carried on.
At 3-30am, as the moon rose, I wandered up to Ken and Eva Lanauze's North Head Farmhouse to breathe in strong coffee. The German sculptor Woytek, responsible for the brilliant group of four bronzes fastened to rock on a precipice atop Hakepa, was fast asleep on the couch, Sally Lanauze dozed slumped in a chair before waking for a call from the BBC, while the Globe and Mail correspondent was hunched over his laptop tapping out text for that mornings edition across Canada. We awaited the arrival and departure of a helicopter in the darkness before taking the official photographer and the Bishop's paraphernalia and table for his service up the mountain on a 4-wheeler. The photographer fell off in the darkness and it was some time before I noticed. We passed others making their way up the road, some on horseback, others on bikes or walking. Certainly the feeling of urgency to be there was abroad. As the sky lightened appreciably above the eastern horizon, silhouettes of people cameras and tents became discernable. The rough undulating ground of large clumps of bracken and fern growing out of the thick peat soil made walking in a straight line impossible. The helicopter sat down in it like a nesting duck. Bishop John Cuneen started his service accompanied by Brigit Preece holding a simple lamp. Television cameramen moved about. Children and young adults read short texts, singing came from a group of girls accompanied by Eva Gregory-Hunt expertly playing the guitar. The helicopter wound up and peeled off north-westward with early footage. As the service ended, the Bishop turned to the east and to the haunting sound of 'Amazing Grace' by the girls and many of the crowd, the sun broke above the horizon setting ablaze the cloudscape already apparent. Within minutes, light misting rain to the west of Hakepa reflected back to us a magnificent and complete rainbow. It was a privilege to have been there on such an occasion, with many old friends, and a remarkable bunch of people they are….a person who has friends is rich indeed.By Don Armitage © 2000 (First published in The Aotea Times Jan 13th, 2000). (click on image to enlarge) |
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