My memories of visiting Islington Bay, probably from about 1950 on, are spasmodic due to the fact that for the first 10 years of my life we lived in Matamata and generally only came north to Auckland for the long summer holidays. We based ourselves at Torbay on my Uncle’s section which had an old army hut on it. My sister and I slept in a tent – Mum and Dad in the hut. From there we would make the trip back to Northcote, catch the ferry across to Auckland and then one of the blue boats to Rangitoto. In those days this trip probably took the best part of a day.

Nana Pelham would be on the old wharf to meet us along with numerous other ‘locals’ meeting their families or just greeting the boat and watching supplies come off for the Issy Bay shop.

My grandfather had died when I was a baby so I have no memory of him at the bach.

Nana did have a boarder though (which I think caused a bit of local gossip), a Mr George Matheson, who also used a boat shed right at the end of the path to Gardener’s Gap. I think he either had his own dingy there or maybe it was Nana’s. I remember running through Trotters Track and thinking it was a big adventure to be going ‘to the other side of the island’. I guess we went out across the sand at low tide in the same way we all do now.

Some of my clearer memories are of the tennis courts, the hall and the shop – a treat was an iceblock when they were in stock and I guess had just come down on the boat – there must have been a kerosene freezer unit both on the boats and in the shop. Mum and Dad played tennis and I remember playing round with other kids while they played in tournaments. Occasionally we were there for the New Year celebrations as I remember the hall being decorated, someone playing a piano, lots of singing, all the kids being allowed to stay up late (or what seemed late at the time) and mostly playing around outside (me probably trying not to be scared in the dark with all the older kids around).

I remember the pool at the front of the bach was quite deep in those days and we could swim or play on the sand. I don’t remember it being muddy then – the silting up of the gap happened after the cattle ramp was built and the mangroves started to grow. One of my favourite things – and exciting as it was dark - was to go floundering at night with a torch and a spear made out of a broom handle with a nail on the end. In later years I remember rowing in the dinghy with my father and his brother Max and pulling the net out across the bay. Flounder were the fish that we hoped to catch in the net as Nana loved them. Fishing off the wharf was also a favourite, sprats being the most common catch and which were then supposedly used for bait by my father and his brother when they went out in the dinghy to catch snapper. Girls not allowed as the men needed to be able to ‘relieve’ themselves!

We didn’t seem to eat pipis so much then – I think probably because Nana preferred cockles and there were plenty in those days near the bach and round the bay at low tide. The water was probably much cleaner 50-60 years ago with less boats anchoring in the bay.

Unfortunately, once our family moved to Torbay to live in 1956 we didn’t visit Rangitoto quite so much as we were living at the beach and our parents’ general store was open 6 days a week. My sister Brenda and I did go down in the long summer holidays occasionally when Nana came up to Auckland ‘for a visit’ and would take us back with her.

My next memories would be as a teenager visiting Nana in the school hols with friends from boarding school – always an exciting thing to do for friends as Rangitoto was such a special place with not many visitors in those days apart from the families still with baches.

My father’s younger brother Max, his wife Jean and their children Graham, Janice and Katherine, took over the upkeep of the bach when Nana Pelham died – they continued to add on and upgrade the bach until it was the comfortable 5 roomed structure that it is today. Nearly 90 years on, old but loved, Bach 95 now has the third, fourth and fifth generation looking after it, knowing what a unique and special place they have to visit and enjoy and will continue to assist in the general protection of Rangitoto Island and all it has to offer the visitor.