JASON WRIGHT

Today Southland will be in mourning for a young man who was making his mark on the local aviation scene.

Jason Wright, 29 wanted to be a helicopter pilot pretty much from the day he could talk.

Now small towns can be pretty hard to get out of sometimes, the lifestyle can be quite seductive. Jason was the only son of Liz and John, both born and bred Southlanders of Ngai Tahu descent. They are great parents and did all they could to help Jason realise his dream of being a helicopter pilot and its a huge credit to them that he ended up doing the thing he was born to do - fly.

Our son is a helicopter pilot too, so we know just how expensive it is and how hard a career it is to crack.

He and my son shared botha passion for flying and of the south.

Jason was good looking young man who was unfailingly polite and he was single minded in the pursuit of his dream.

He started flying around the age of 18. He flew both here in New Zealand and in places like Cambodia where he was involved in animal recovery. He could have set up shop anywhere in the world, but he chose to go back to the place of his heart - Bluff. It was home and like most of us who hail from those parts - we have a bond with Stewart Island that can never be broken.

This year he took us to our Muttonbird Island. He looked after his passengers like they were his own whanau - muttonbirders are really one big whanau anyway. Jason understood them and they loved him for it.

In fact, I suspect that for many years the hard money that Liz and John earned from muttonbirding, would have gone to help Jason realise his dream.

He was on our facebook page. We shared stories on there from time to time and the photos he took showed his passion for Stewart Island was probably as strong as his passion for helicopters.

He soon established himself as a trusted and popular pilot and as a young Bluff businessman. Bluffies were so very very proud of him. He was the role model many parents suggested to their kids that they could do well to emulate. He was the epitome of the small town boy doing good.

Today they found his body and that of the chap he was flying with - Allan Munro, another man who was obviously a lover of aviation, in the cold waters of the Bluff Harbour.

It is so hard when good men die young. So hard to fathom the reason for it all.

But we will remember the Jason who sucked the juice out of the fruit of life every damn day. He didn't waste one second of his time. He was still in awe at the beauty of the places he got to visit every day and he understood the people of the south and he loved sharing both with those from other places. His was not just a life well lived -it was a life lived best.

THE JOURNEY BEGINS

Its 12.30 am and its cold, there is a southerly blowing, and in two hours at 2.30am we will be off on the trip to our muttonbird island Just out from pegasus to the south east of stewart Island. The son and I are travelling on our cousins boat - the Awesome (spelt with an A) . We will be travelling west - about - in short that means the long way. Past Codfish. past Doughboy and Flowercast.

Then we get a bit of a treat. The  Stewart Island Helicopter piloted by Jason Wright will take us from the Big South Cape, and fly over Flowercast down Pegasus and land on the top of our island, which is pretty much half way between South Cape and Noble Island on the map.
Then the Awesome will arrive at the island a few hours later and the helicopter will return to Bluff to pick up ma and pa and drop them off and load our gear onto Ernest  island.  Which is not the Ernest Island outside Doughboy.

Then the fun begins.

This year the birds are big and plentiful.

Yum.

TWO WEEKS OF CHICK CHATTER

This is  the noise we will hear at the muttonbird islands every night. You get used to it. It mainly occurs in the evening and the morning  as the parent bids communicate with the chicks. For the record we do not eat the eggs. Muttonbirds only lay one.  We harvest the chicks at night. This video, apart from the the error about eating eggs is cool. Sort of an avian Blair Witch project. 

HOOKERS

We share our muttonbird island with these smelly noisy beautiful majestic big buggers. They live in the bush as much as on the beach and will literally scare the crap out of you if you come across them in the dark. On land they are very aggressive. At sea they play. We have hand fed them mussels from a rock - they are highly intelligent and an endless source of amusement. They can clean out a gill net full with about 20 green bone in a matter of minutes. Video courtesy of Stewart Island Helicopters

COOL CHANGE

This is the boat that will take us to the muttonbird island and that's the helicopter that will take Ma and Pa down. It not our island shown but its very similar. And that's how we get our gear ashore. In the old days it used to take about ten dinghy loads.

Make a change from staring at a computer in my 5 x5 public service cubby hole every day.

IN DEEP

In about three weeks we are going to be here.

Its Ernest Island which is a  short swim to Stewart Island, one of the southern most and isolated muttonbird  islands and on a good day with the sun shining on the ebb tide and the fish biting, its kinda paradise. When the southerly comes up and your words are thiefed by a gale to disappear forever - its  hells next door neigbour .
And yes, those waters are so clear you hang over the end of the dinghy and watch the blue cod commit suicide on a rusty hook baited up with the arse of a muttonbird.


We have been commissioned to write a story on this years trip , which we will be taking with our 73 year old father, 69 year old mother and 28 year old son.

The story will be in a magazine called New Zealand Today - and the editor is an old work colleague, Allan Dick.
We will be without  a cellphone and there is no internet coverage. We can talk on  a VHF and in the past we have taken down a Satellite Phone, but it costs a bit  - last time it was $600 for 2 weeks.( if anyone wants to sponsor us  - please let us know!)

It will be hard work,  and fun and always brings us closer together as a family. We work and live together in very confined quarters - Our power is a generator, we have a coal range that needs all the love an attention of an expensive mistress to keep us a warm and fed.

We have a long drop  but we have a good shower. Well we did two years ago. The first few days are always spent gerry rigging the things that have broken or deteriorated without constant maintenence. Its one of the joys and challenges of the place. Getting by with what you have got at hand.

We will take our computer  and blog when we can  and then we will put them all up on Roarprawn when we get back about the 14th of May. We will be taking a video as well.

And yep we sell the birds we catch to defray expenses.  It will cost  the four of us over $2500 to get down  by boat and chopper from Bluff  and thats is not taking into account the $1000 dollars for me and the son to fly Air New Zealand. But its worth every godamn hard earned dollar it costs to get there.
The boat we are travelling on is skippered by Jack Topi, he is  the grandson of Peter Topi, my Uncle who along with  a bunch of our cousins was tragically drowned on the Kotuku back in 2006. "Big Teep"  as my Uncle was affectionately known, would be bloody proud of his grandson, in fact his whole family have done him proud. 

We are alos looking for some guest bloggers to keep the Roarprawn feeding the masses while we are out of range.
And if you want to buy some birds then contact us on bustedblonde@gmail.com

RAKIURA BOYS FLY HIGH

Its good to see young men do well and there are two businesses down south that are worthy of some promotion.

They are Rakiura Helicopters operated by Zane Smith ( he's a cuz) (left)
and Stewart Island Helicopters
operated by Jason Wright.(above right

and of course BB's son works as an instructor at Helipro
out of Paraparamu. (above left)


Proud of our Southern Ngai Tahu Rakiura chopper boys we are.. real proud...