Scotland detective finds home in Doubtless Bay

Detective Steve MacDonald, happy in his work back in Kaitaia.

He could hardly be further from his roots in the Scottish fishing village of Oban (which gave its name to the capital of Stewart Island, with which it is twinned), but Steve MacDonald reckons returning to Kaitaia late last year felt like coming home.

Detective MacDonald, his French wife Violaine and their two children are now happily ensconced at Doubtless Bay, the children attending Mangonui School and very much into boogie boarding.

He joined the British police force in Strathclyde in 1999, then transferred to the London Met, spending five years stationed in Ealing. He was recruited for the New Zealand force in 2007, part of a major drive to bolster numbers in this country, by none other than Bruce Shadbolt, these days a detective inspector in Auckland but once the senior sergeant in charge at Kaitaia.

"He told me I would like it here, and he was right," he said.

He didn't have a lot of choice about Kaitaia — he was posted here when he arrived in New Zealand — but he had enjoyed six years here. And apart from climate it wasn't entirely new territory, given his experience of the ethnic mix in Ealing.

Steve left in 2013 to spend three years back in uniform in Waimate, in South Canterbury (where he encountered Houhora's one-time resident constable, Chris Yarnton, now retired in Oamaru), before being seconded to the Greymouth CIB (where his supervisor was another former Kaitaia officer, Matt Tailby).

Last year the opportunity to return to Kaitaia arose and he took it.

"It was a good move for my family," he said, and he had had no trouble blending back into the community. He still had networks and friendships he had established during his first stint, although many of the officers he had worked alongside had moved on.

And he was enjoying making the most of all that the Far North had to offer, "chilling" with his family at the beach, exploring, and seeing his wife indulge her passion for photography.