MATAU-A-MAUI

Otago Witness, Issue 3803, 1 February 1927, Page 75

MATAU-A-MAUI

By

Mona Tracy.

| (Copyright.—For the Witness.) Looking south-eastward from the town of Napier on clear days you can see a chalkwhite promontory rising sheerly from the incredible blue of the Pacific. The fact that the Maoris know it as Matau-a-Maui indicates that for many centuries it has stood as a landmark in that part of New Zealand. Maui, the legendary man ot might, must have had a line wherewith to pull to the ocean’s surface his great fish; Maui, perforce, must also have had a hook. Mark the unusual line of the promonotory; behold how sharp is its tooth, how like polished bone it glistens in the face of the Sun god ! In truth, the hook of a very giant. Hence Matau-a-Maui. Captain Cook, making his painstaking survey of Hawke’s Bay, could not fail to note the “tolerable high, white, steep cliffs at its southern extremity.” He observed, too, that the point was “made more remarkable by two white rocks in the form of haystacks standing very near it.” And his happy facility for giving his discoveries appropriate names was not lacking on that fifteenth day of October, 1769, when the Endeavour stood over for the Cape. Simply and unemotionally Cook tells the story :

. . . “A large armed Boat wherein were 22 men, came alongside. . . The Indian boy, Tiata, Tupia’s servant, being over the side, they seiz’d hold of him, pull’d him into the Boat, and endeavoured to carry him off; this obliged us to fire upon them, which gave the boy the opportunity to jump overboard. We brought the Ship to, lower’d a Boat into the water, and took him up unhurt. Two or three paid for this daring attempt with the loss of their lives, and many more would have suffer’d had it not been for fear ql killing the boy. This affair occasioned my giving this point of land the name of Cape Kidnappers.”

There is one feature of Cape Kidnappers as it stands to-day that probably was not given Cook to see, and that is the most remarkable gannet rookery the length and bieadth of the globe. It is my belief that had the birds been there in Cook’s time, he would most certainly have mentioned them, for elsewhere in his journal there are frequent allusions to these “Solan geese” of the South Seas. And Cook, with his keen eye for natural objects, would surely have remarked on the fact ot a gannet rookery upon the mainland, a thing unknown to natural history except in this single instance. On the other hand, one of the rocks “like havstacks” isvgone, succumbed, most likely, to the thunderous seas of some mighty storm. He who visits Matau-a-Maui to-day is wise to make his trip along the shore in calm weather; for when the Pacific is angry the tide comes churning up the beach in a smother of foam, biting and snarling about the jagged rocks, and rushing to assault the ramparts of the great cliffs, while from the cliffs themselves there come hurtling down masses of rock and huge slides of shingle. It is a war of the elements, a battle of the gods of the sea and the earth and the winds. On such dats Matau-a-Maui is splendidly isolated. The scream of a mollyhawk or the white flash of a tern’s wings is the only sign of life along the shore, while high up in their rookery on the Cape the patient gannets sit clutching their eggs in order to keep them from being blown over the cliff. In visiting Matau-a-Maui I had the good fortune to be ciceroned by Mr and Mrs H. S. Cottrell, of Napier. To these charming folk the gannets of Kidnappers are as familiar and well-loved friends. For many years Mr and Mrs Cottrell have been studying the birds, visiting them

frequently, and noting their habits. It has been Mr Cottrell’s delight to make the trip several times in a single season in order to photograph the one nest in its several stages of development—first with the eg?, then with the verv tiny nestling or “fluffv” chick, later with the older or “speckled” chick, and last of all when the gannets have gone north and the nest is nothing but a depression rn the face of the cliff. More than anyone else he has tried to convev to New Zealanders the wonder of the Kidnappers rookery, and it was his knowledge of the wild life on Matau-a-Maui that enabled him to dispose of a canard published some time ago to the effect that the gannets were abandoning the Cape. On the contrary, declares Mr Cottrell, the gannets are definitely increasing iii numbers, so much so that there are signs of the setting un of a new colonv on another part of the cliffs. Sula Serrator, as they call the New Zealand gannet, is a. wise bird. Since he lives on small fish —herrings and the like—he will not go a-nesting in anv place where there is no visible food sunnly. Should any springtime bring the fish late upon the coast, you may go searching for Sula in vain, for most certainly he will not be there

ahead of the fish. And again I was fortunate in the day fixed for the Matau-a-Maui trip. A whimsical dav it was. .with skies that gave wav alternately to swift laughter and sudden tears. All the blues and greens and purples in the world chased themselves across the floor of the sea. The long reefs striking out from the shore were jet black by contrast, gemmed here and there with patches of weed a warm crimson. But loveliest of all were the cliffs, with their buttresses of rock, their deep clefts, striking sharply inwards, and their many coloured ribbons of layered strata. There were ribbons of a deep cold blue, of buff, of grey, and brown, and terracotta. and the whole was crowned with the live green of growing things—an unimaginably beautiful thing at the time of seeing it, and an unforgettable memory to carry down the years.

Now and again sudden squalls came shouting in from the sea, grey squalls that filled the air with flying scud and obliterated the magical ‘colourings of sea and reef and cliff. Even so, the coast lost little of its charm. With the salt, stinging rain blurring the outlines of the harsher headlands, and the lowering clouds sweeping down over the promontory, Matau-a-Maui took on a weird, almost unearthly, beauty. I do not think there was one of us who walked to Cape Kidnappers that day but did not fall beneath the spell of Maui’s hook. A six-miles tramp along the _ beach brought us to a tiny bay in which, at "one time, the whalers set up their trypots and. held seasonal carousal on vile rum arrack. Were there gannets on Kidnappers in those days? I wondered. It so, how strange must have seemed to them the ways of humans. Aloof, living on their then inaccessible eyrie for the sole purpose of hatching and caring for their young, they must have looked down upon the bay with something of scorn for earthbound humanity. From the bay the rookery can be reached only at the expense of some hard climbing. Ascending steadily, a high valley is crossed, and then comes the most difficult part of the journey. The track, although repaired from time to time, is more suited to mountain goats than to respectable citizens past their first youth. Indeed, I was told of one man who, on a recent occasion, proved himself an adventurer of the mind rather than of the body. At the most difficult part of the track he stuck fast,

retusing to move eitner torwara or ouckward. Members of his party endeavoured to persuade him to do something. He was adamant. There he was, and there, presumably, he intended to remain. Dusk was coming on, and the tide was rising. Since certain parts of the journey along the beach can be negotiated only at loiv tide, it was necessary that the party should make an immediate start for home. Still the gentleman clung desperately to a tuft of grass on the bank above him, •while the men of the party uttered word’s of a nature not heard on Matau-a-Maui since' the days of the whalers.

Yes, they moved him at last; but 1 was assured they had to blindfold him in order to do it. And now for the journey’s goal—the first glimpse of the gannets. The track brought us of a sudden upon them. There, in orderly lines, they sat gazing with incurious eyes upon the invaders of their sanctuary. They were in such numbers that they whitened the plateau whereon they had built their nests: thev seemed to flow in a white

stream over the very edges of the cliffs. But, although we actually stood in the midst of them, not a bird moved from its nest, for it is gannet law that one or other parent must always be on guard. Mr and Mrs Sula take turns in brooding, the partner off dutv either resting or fishing. Usually the resting birds retire to a grassy slope near by, dubbed byMr Cottrell the “Bowling Green.” On each change of guard some extraordinary love-making takes place between the pair, who rub necks lovingly, and in other ways demonstrate their" affection for one another. They also displav the utmost anxiety concerning their offspring, and it is a cunning chick that manages, even for an instant, to elude the vigilance ot either parent. During the time we stood there raptly a fight broke out in a colony. So far as wo could judge, the business arose through one bird having peeked another with unwarranted severity. Although in the air the acme of grace, on land the gannet is ungainly to the point of ludicrousncss. Flopping along on his huge webbed feet between the narrow lows ot nests, it is difficult for him to avoid blundering into some brooding bird. A sharp peck is his reward. Should he be so ungentlemanly as to retaliate, the matter goes further, for it is bound to be taken up by the occupants of other nests, and then is a to-do on Matau-a-Maui.

In appearance the gannet is a strikingly handsome bird. Unlike the Solan goose of the northern hemisphere, he has black feathers in his tail, while his huge spread of wings is black-edged. Except for his neck and the crown of his head, a warm buff, the rest of him is white. His eyes are as blue as the sea itself. In New Zealand his nesting places are on the Three Kings, the Great Barrier, White Island. Gannet Island at Kawhia, and Cape Kidnappers. The colonies begin to assemble in September, the nest being a depression in the ground, which is lined with seaweed. The same nests are occupied year after year. The chick is hatched

after six weeks’ incubation, and is, at the time of his appearance, anything but attractive, being dark grey in colour, and without a single feather. In a few days, however, he becomes covered with soft white down, and resembles a fluffy powderpuff. Four weeks later, dark, whitetipped* feathers appear, and at eight weeks he has a full coat of speckled plumage. It takes him three years to mature. In April the gannets go north, and until the following spring they range the Pacific. Then there is quiet on Matau-a-Maui, and unless a solitary shag comes by, it is fairly safe for the littlest fish to swim in safety beneath the shadow of Maui’s hook.

There was not a member of our party but could have snent the whole day on Kidnappers ; but no liberties may be taken with the tide. Not without a last, lingering look we turned from the rookery, ana took the path that led down towards the bay of the whalers. Until we had made the descent, we had not realised the force of the wind that blew over the Cape, for the slopes of tho little bay were, by contrast, strangely peaceful. High in. the air a lark was singing. A kingfisher winged by. a flash of emerald anrf blue, while two Indian mynahs fluttered their black and white plumage in a ngaio tree close by the beach. So we came back from Matau-a-Maui just in time to round the last bluff before the tide came roaring in. The last halt mile was made in a vicious rain-storm .that blotted out the distant Cape, whereon, rain or shine, there sit the patient gannets at their work. But no one grumbled. Personally I am grateful to Matau-a-Maui. It has made me richer by a splendid memory. I have seen it in all its wild and rugged grandeur; and should that be not enough, why, I have seen the gannets also. But even though I have visited with Mr and Mrs Sula, I still have difficulty in believing in their reality. They are too marvellous.