Tuateawa: The Offshore Islands.

From almost any point in Tuateawa a string of distant islands can be seen lying along our horizon.

To the north is Great Barrier Is. the island of the white cloud- Motu Aotea. The highest point is Mt. Hobson at 621m. named after the chap who signed The Treaty! Unlike Tuateawa the island lacks reticulated power but on the plus side there are no possums, stoats or weasels. Until 1908 when an undersea telephone link was established a pigeon post service existed between there and Auckland. The island seems to have selected a special type of resident. Time seems to move slower there. Road users are few and more considerate drivers cannot be found anywhere. The islanders are particularly protective of their wildlife and their mustelid free status. A couple of boaties out walking their pet ferret on the beach in 2001 were quickly made aware of this point. Wisely they pleaded guilty to this offense and were fined $2600 plus costs. In a strange contradiction the last whaling station ever built in NZ was constructed on the island in 1956. It operated until 1962 and you can be certain that whales were sought in Tuateawa waters.

Captain Cook named Great Barrier Is, as he did much of NZ. He missed out naming Cuvier Is. however. This honour fell to the French navigator D'Urville, naming it after a naturalist and fellow countryman. Being nearly 40km. of the coast it is the first part of NZ visible when sailing across the Pacific. In consequence it has a rather fine lighthouse. These days it is not manned. It is solar powered and automatic. During the 2nd W.W. the island was also the site of experimental work on the development of radar. Today Cuvier is escaping the devastation created by farm animals, goats rats and feral cats. They are all gone. It is now a major home for our saddlebacks. Early this year a number of juvenile tuatara were returned to the island. Sad to think that each has a value of $20 000 on the international black market. The nesting seabirds that were once present in their teeming thousands are not back yet. The sounds of the rarest of these, Pycroft's petrel are broadcast from the summit in a place where artificial nest burrows have been created.

Closer still to Tuateawa are the Mercury Is. A self published book by a 50 year resident of Gt. Mercury gives a wealth of detail on the island from the Maori perspective. Printed in 1997 it is titled Ahuahu, The Maori story concerning Mercury Island. by Pat Mizzen. John Hovell, artist, of Kennedy Bay, provided a great collection of illustrations. In recent years it has been the sometime holiday residence of Sir Michael Fay. The whole island can be rented however but you might need to save your pennies. The going rate is $20 000 a day. Entertainment personalities like Bono and the Edge have relaxed there. The island in the group that has a real connection with the past however is Red Mercury and it will be the subject of a later posting.