Birdlings Flat: A future Rocket Town?
Space rocketsmaysoon blaze into orbit from Birdlings Flat, but CHARLIE GATES discovers the township is familiar with lights in the sky.
Lisa Wilkins-Pirika was born on the day that man first walked on the moon.
‘‘My mum has stories about when she was giving birth to me. Her and the nurses were huddled around a transistor radio, listening to the moon landing. My mum might have been a bit preoccupied at the time.
‘‘Every time it was my birthday people were always talking about astronauts . . . so I kind of wanted to be an astronaut.’’
She is now an artist, but may soon live a little closer to her childhood dream. Just down the spit from her Birdlings Flat home, there are plans to build a rocket base. Auckland company Rocket Lab hopes to launch satellites into space from the site.
Wilkins-Pirika moved to Birdlings Flat 11 years ago after visiting one day and seeing a humpback whale leap into the air. ‘‘From that moment on I decided I would live here. I’m a city girl from Aranui, but that convinced me.
‘‘Because it is an extreme neighbourhood, the people that stay really love it. We say that when people move into a house, if they survive their first winter they are Birdlings Flat people.’’
Birdlings Flat is a lonely and rugged place on the edge of Banks Peninsula. Small houses cling to the grey pebble beach with sunstruck hills and an immense sky as their backdrop. Neat little houses nestle alongside makeshift homes cobbled together from caravans and shipping containers. Some back yards are populated with wind turbines and rusted out vehicles. In one yard, an old television lies in the ruins of a couch.
The crash of the sea is a constant companion.
The township could soon be lit up by rockets heading into space, but Wilkins-Pirika already has stories about lights in the sky.
‘‘You get an incredible view of the Milky Way and stars and satellites going over. Some of the boys that go up to the lake at night for eeling have lots of stories about ball lightning and lots of strange happenings around here.
‘‘My dad reckons that he saw a big blue ball of light slowly roll all the way up the lake towards the sea one night. It freaked them out quite a bit. A few people saw that.
‘‘I have seen lots of strange lights coming from down the spit. I used to have a caravan outside that I slept in and had the windows open. Quite often you would wake up and see lightning coming out of the ground and going up into the sky.’’
Neighbour Larissa Dunn has lived in Birdlings Flat for ‘‘pretty much’’ all her life. She remembers watching the southern lights as a child. ‘‘It is really clear at night. It is lovely. You see lights and satellites and things other than stars. It is a good place to see things other than stars.’’
Has she ever seen anything other than stars? She smiles and seems reluctant to say more.
‘‘I saw these two lights quite far apart. We watched them and they got closer and closer together. Then they danced around each other and did this strange thing and then took off. I don’t know what it was. You can see some interesting things.’’
She is excited about the coming of the rockets. ‘‘I think it sounds really exciting and really cool. It will be great for Birdlings Flat. It is awesome for people to get involved in science and it will be good for young people to have role models.
‘‘It will probably make Birdlings Flat a bit more well known. It
We say that when people move into a house, if they survive their first winter they are Birdlings Flat people. Lisa Wilkins-Pirika
is a middle-of-nowhere place. I can imagine us being on the international news in the UK and US or something.’’
Local resident Murray Smith is also keen on the rockets. ‘‘It will be something different to look at now and again. I want to watch them launch it.’’
He has lived in Birdlings Flat since his retirement 15 years ago. ‘‘I would far sooner live here than in a subdivision. I can take the dog down the spit in the morning. There is a lot more freedom here.
‘‘I wouldn’t want to live in a subdivision or in a city. A day out would be the supermarket or The Warehouse or something.’’
Smith also feels a connection to those epic skies. ‘‘When the big full moon comes over that hill there on a clear night it is amazing.’’
Would he like to venture into space one day? ‘‘It would be good to look down on Earth from a great distance. That is the one thing you can’t get your head around. That probe in outer space has been going for years. It looked back on Earth and there was this little dot. It made me think: ‘We’re nothing, aren’t we?’ ’’