In January 2025, I was part of a volunteer crew doing maintenance work on the Island Hill Homestead near Rakiura Stewart Island’s west coast.

As one of the oldest buildings on the island it holds a significant place in local history. It’s named after Island Hill, a granite mound you pass on the track between Mason Bay and Freshwater Huts.  

The homestead, woolshed and grounds have been cared for by DOC since 1987. The buildings are used as a work base by staff, hut wardens, contractors and research students. It’s been especially useful for accommodating people working on the dune restoration and pukunui (southern dotterel) projects in the bay.  

My husband Mark and I had passed the homestead on previous tramping trips. We spent a memorable evening there with the hut wardens eating fresh pikelets on the porch, reading from old logbooks and being investigated by several kiwi.   

When we spotted the opportunity for a 10-day volunteer stint, we decided to apply. We loved the idea of spending time in remote and beautiful Mason Bay, living in the historic homestead and giving something back.  

A short history of Island Hill Homestead 

The homestead was built in 1880 and housed farmers and their families for nearly 90 years. Many were familiar local names: William Walker, Arthur and Mateen Traill, Stanford and Dolly Leask and Tim and Ngaire Te Aika.  

The site oozes struggle, refuge and resourcefulness. It feels isolated today but would have been extraordinarily remote in the 19^th century. Prevailing westerly winds sweep up the valley, with a macrocarpa wind break providing some shelter from the worst of the gales.  

Some farmers profited from grazing sheep and cattle on the marginal land, but it was never easy. Hardly surprising. Half sand dune, half wetland, the land required a network of drainage ditches to get enough grass to grow. Access was also challenging. It was heavy work to maintain a road to Freshwater Landing across the ‘chocolate swamp’, but even that was better than loading a ship on the wild Mason Bay coast. 

Most residents added on to or modified the homestead during their time, so it tells the story of their habitation. I read of an abundant vegetable garden next to the house in 1916. 

The Te Aika family lived there from 1966 and Ngaire home-schooled their two daughters. Historian Olga Sansom describes finding them, “dressed for school…with shoes polished, hair well-groomed and with neat, pleated skirts and white blouses like any other college girls.” 

In 1986, the Te Aika family relinquished the farm’s lease to the Crown because it had become uneconomic.  

Fast forward to 2025 

We arrived after a 10-minute helicopter flight across the island. No ancient farmers were there to meet us – just a gorgeous warm summer’s day and hundreds of bumble bees. The bees are thought to descend for the kanuka flowering and are madly attracted to anything blue. We had been warned – and had studiously removed everything blue from our clothing and kit.  

Also in our group were volunteers Janet Dunn and Dugald Wilson. Riki Everest from Rakiura Māori Lands Trust and Jaega Banga, ranger also came for a few days each. The trip was led by Andrew King, supervisor, Rakiura National Park.  

Andrew loves this place. “I’ve been coming out here for 20 years. I have a keen interest in all the historic work, because you have to keep the stories alive”.  

The stories of previous inhabitants were told as he showed us around the area – homestead, woolshed, shower, implement shed and nearby trampers’ and hunters’ huts – and hinted at our work ahead.  

Looking after a heritage building 

There were a couple of big jobs for us – build and fit a new window to replace a rotten one, and build and install a new kitchen cupboard. There were also lots of small maintenance jobs to work through depending on the weather and how long things took. 

“We’re careful to respect the building’s heritage values, and change as little as possible. So we don’t fill over screw heads or try and make things look new. I name and date all the new cabinetry we fit and document everything.  

“Borer is a big issue. We’re slowly replacing anything that’s too bad to restore. If you can’t hold it then you replace it with like for like, as much as possible. I use wood collected from the beach, look out for second-hand timber and source macrocarpa for the interior so it fits in. It’s more effort but it’s worth it.”  

Every morning after breakfast we talked about work for the day and people chose what they wanted to do. Andrew would patiently explain the tasks and how to do them. There was never any time pressure.  

I’d often hear an encouraging “gettin’ there”, “there’s no hurry” or “looking good” as Andrew kept a weather eye on our progress.  

I think this relaxed attentiveness really paid off with a happy crew, no injuries (just one bee sting for me) and only a few fixable mistakes.   

A steady stream of trampers stopped to say hello on their way through. We enjoyed showing them around the site and talking about our work.  

Jobs done – and done well 

What we did achieve over the time was significant:

• built and fitted a new window
• applied wood preservative to fence and woolshed
• scraped back and repainted window exteriors
• cleaned gutters on homestead and Mason Bay Hut
• set traps – 1 possum, 1 feral cat caught
• built and fitted new kitchen cupboard, sanded and cleaned original doors to reuse
• put in new fence posts
• scraped rust off tractors and wool press and applied metal preservative
• cleaned Mason Bay Hut and toilets
• cut long grass beside the woolshed
• sorted timber in woodshed
• replaced borer-ridden skirting boards
• cleaned homestead and swept woolshed
• shared out the cooking and dishes

One job I particularly enjoyed was re-wallpapering a kitchen wall. This involved choosing from a stash of period rolls in the back cupboard, applying scrim (what a marvellous way to prep a rough wooden wall!), then sticking up the fresh wallpaper. It was hugely satisfying to put all the spreads, spices and sauces back into the new, clean cupboard that others had built, knowing it would be well-used in years to come.    

With a wry smile and twinkle in his eye, Andrew clearly got huge satisfaction from enabling us to be stretched a bit while making sure the jobs were done to a high standard.  

“The value of this project is introducing people to what DOC workers do. We teach them a lot of new stuff but it goes both ways – we learn off each other.”  

He says the Stewart Island visitor and heritage team has always been very strong on using volunteers as hut wardens and on historic, hut cleaning and painting trips and track trimming trips.   

“We do a lot of hours with volunteers every year.”  

Māori history and archaeological sites 

European history on the island is short compared with the centuries-old association that Māori have with Rakiura and its offshore islands – especially the tītī islands.  

Riki Everest joined us for the first part of the trip. He’s a captivating storyteller and former pāua diver who now lives on the island.  

“We grew up on the legends of Tim Te Aika and George, Stanford and Dolly Leask. When you come into this place and see the state of the buildings and how hard it would have been for them as pioneers, you pay homage to those who’ve been on the land before you. They don’t have to be Māori to be legends.” 

On our second day in perfect weather, Andrew took us all on a walkabout in the dunes to check on the mapped iwi archaeological sites in the area. Unfortunately most had been covered by sand and weren’t visible. Others had been swamped by fast-growing weedy lupins. 

Undeterred, Riki is keen to come back to look around on his own another time. 

“It was a complete privilege to come over to Mason’s on behalf of the trust and spend time here. My cup is just a wee bit full.” 

Riki says he’s really impressed that DOC wants to strengthen ties.   

“We feel the same, it’s absolutely reciprocal. We’re all kaitiaki of Rakiura.  

“I think DOC is an incredible resource. They have all the protocols in place to care for the iwi sites and the best people – experts with years of experience. We can learn a lot from them and they’re really willing to teach. I can’t thank them enough.”  

About the Southland Volunteer Programme  

The Southland volunteer programme has been running for 20 years.  

Andrew explains that the organisers are not looking for specific skills but for a mixture of people.  

“It can be couples or single people – anyone can do it. Everyone has different skills but everyone is keen to learn. Most volunteers haven’t done any building work or anything like this before. I’ve found the older ones easier to manage and more keen to get out than some of the younger ones!” 

So what makes a great volunteer experience? Here are Andrew’s top tips: 

Food is very important, so everyone normally gets fed well. (Superb understatement by Andrew – the food was generous and hearty!)  

If people don’t want to do something they’re usually pretty honest about it. It’s got to be that open conversation right from the start. 

I like to give people the knowledge they need to do a job then let them get on with it. I encourage questions.  

There’s no rush, if it doesn’t get done one day, there’s always another day. 

10 days can be a long time for some, so the trick is to make sure everyone gets along and respects each other. If there are any niggles we get onto it pretty quickly.