Chippy McNish - respect

Today we went by train to Wellington to puck up our car hire. Before that we had a morning at Te Papa, the wonderful museum. I spent time looking at the Maori history and stuff about the Pacific islands. As recently as the 1950s the population of an entire island was "relocated" to Fiji to allow phosphate extraction - it was needed for the sheep farmland in NZ.

We had a lovely lunch with Ailie in Cuba St before heading up to a cemetery, one of the biggest I've ever seem, to pay our respects to Chippy McNish. Another tale of injustice - he was the talented and resourceful carpenter on the Endurance. When it was stuck in ice in Antarctica, and crushed, he made runners for the lifeboats to enable them to be hauled over the ice pack as far as possible. Then the boats sailed to Elephant island where most of the crew were left. McNIsh was one of those chosen by Shackleton to make the hazardous journey in the other boat to South Georgia where they landed, but then they had to climb over mountains to reach the whaling station on the other side. He made crampon-type things for the boots to enabled this climb. All Shackleton's men were rescued and survived, and most were awarded the polar medal. But not McNish, even though they'd not have survived without his innovation and skill - apparently, being a Socialist Scot who spoke his mind he clashed with the authority of Shackleton. Having visited Shackleton's grave in South Georgia, and done part of that final walk, we wanted to come here too. McNish died a pauper in NZ - his gravestone was erected by the NZ Antarctica group.

The power of Facebook - I put this picture on and hours later a friend of my daughter's in London told me her NZ brother was one of those responsible!