'THEIR SUN IS GONE DOWN’

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 98, 19 January 1933, Page 11 (Supplement)

'THEIR SUN IS GONE DOWN’

made at the large camp site at Taradale.

Motorists who use these camp sites or who come into the town and stay at the hotels will find themselves in the heart of a district filled with as great a variety of scenic and holiday attractions as can be found anywhere in the Dominion. Fifteen miles away are the Tangoio Falls, and 13 miles further on is beau tiful Lake Tutira. Tlie interesting Puketitiri sawmilling district •is less than 10 miles "from Hawke’s Bay’s capital. Unique Gannet Nesting Place.

Lastly, but by no means least, the nesting place of the gannets. To the long headland of Cape Kidnappers one journeys by motor-car with a six-mile tramp or cycle ride to complete the distance “This will bring you." wrote an Australian visitor recently, "to the promontory terminating in a solitary, cone-shaped island. It is not on this that the gannets have . their nesting-ground, but on the undulating finger of grassland adjacent. "Here, as wild winter merges into spring, gather the gannets to build their homes on the green turf: and. in late summer, hundreds of speckled youngsters are to be seen waddling awkivartlly to the edjee of their precipi-'

tonsly-walled city, where they stand flapping their wings as a preparatory exercise to their departure. , Hatched in a nest of seaweed, from a solitary egg which the parent bird holds down with a decidedly firm foot, they emerge naked, black-skinned and ungainly - looking objects; learn to crawl, and likewise to insert their beaks into the capacious throats of their parents for the purpose of receiving quantities of half-digested fishy nourishment regurgitated by father and mother. They grow into balls of snowy fluff as big as a duck, then sport a speckled coat, become as fat as butter, and are eventually left alone to take the supreme step in their lives, a leap, flop and flutter from the cliff's

influx of summer visitors in- the present and future years. One enclosed motorists’ camping site at George's Drive is considered to be unequalled in New Zealand. It offers full accommodation—hot baths. hot and cold "showers, a washhouse, a

edge to the ocean, where they must subsist by their own efforts or die in the attempt.

“Tlie gannet is reputed to be a bird lacking in mentality, and many stories are told of his stupidity. It does not take you long to come to the same conclusion as you step gingerly among their closely-crowded nests and watch them indulging in furtive dabs at your legs with their steely-blue beaks: or landing at your feet and gazing about for their wandered ’young, when they might easily rise in a body and descend on you with a smashing blow -from an outstretched wing, or make a fierce dive upon your bare head with claws and formidable beak,”

dining-room, a reading-room, 12 gasrings, and whares, each with gas-rings of their own. Electric light is available in both this area and in an outer area, where gas. water, and lavatory facilities also are provided. At the Te Awa School a special camp has been prepared to provide extra accommodation during the carnival period. Special provision has also been

Earthquake Memorial AN IMPRESSIVE MONUMENT

"Their sun is gone dozen zvhile it zvas yet day." Graven in the concrete of a low zvall, these simple zvords form the epitaph of those who died in Napier on the occasion of the Great Earthquake. The quotation is read by pilgrims ‘ to the quiet Parke Island cemetery zvhere stands the recently- . completed memorial to the victim's of the disaster.

The road to Parke Island cuts across the Ahuriri flats on its way to Taradale and beyond. One approaches rhe lovely spot—a knoll jutting out on what was previously a tidal bay—up a gradually rising by-road that swings round the hill past the ruins of the Old People’s Home. Near the. cemetery the approach narrows to the proportions of a lane, fringed with long grasses and lined on one side with trees. Once there was a massive stone gateway to the hallowed ground, but this. too. crumbled during the upheaval. In the cemetery itself, which occupies most of the hill on the northern and north-western side of the island, the driveway winds among the plots until it reaches the brow. Many of the broken headstones have been repaired and replaced, but many others lie where they fell like shattered temple columns. I’arke, Island is the quietest of resting places. A semi-rural backwater several miles from Napier, it basks in the sunshine of Hawke’s Bay with no sound to break its solitude save the

occasional call of birds and the lazy chirping of insects. Facing the distant line of white breakers witli tlie deep blue of the ocean beyond stands the memorial above the common grave of the earthquake Though small in size, it is of noble proportions, resembling from a short distance the famous Cenotaph at Whitehall. Its background is the wall, fringing the large plot on which is graven tlie epitaph. The only engraving on the column consists of the date of the disaster.

“3rd February” appears in large symbols, and below that, on a diamondshaped and raised plaque, the figures

"1931”. There is an impressive brevity about the inscriptions that is arresting. The year, the month, and the day. “Their sun is gone down ....’’ That is all. The colours of the monument are rich and warm. Shades of yellow from old gold to. a pale, delicate tint blend one into another from the base to'the top. It is‘an uncommon conception in such surroundings, but a beautiful one. The green of the trees and the grass forms a sympathetic background, and the rugged surface of the material lends its touch of dignity.