Captain Cook found a “Snug Cove” in the Sounds.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18614, 16 November 1928, Page 13

Captain Cook found a “Snug Cove ” in the Sounds.

(Continued from Page 12. is one entire forest. Having the seine with us, we made a few hauls, and caught 3001 b weight of different sorts of fish.” Cook made a garden on Motuara Island, three miles east of this cove, when he revisited Queen Charlotte Sound in 1772. On Long Island, some two miles farther out, Captain Furnoaux, who accompanied Cook in the “Adventure,” made another garden. Here the first potatoes produced in New Zealand were grown. Goats and sheep donated to the Maoris were set free in the bush on this island, and carrots and parsnips still grow wild, with promising tops three feet high, but the roots are inedible! In spite of Cook’s encouragement in the way of a vegetarian diet for the Maoris during this visit of the “Adventure,” nine men from the ship were set upon and massacred. They were cooked and eaten on the shores of Grass Cove. On his third visit, Cook liberated poultry and pigs in the bush round Cannibal Cove, which is to the north of Ship Cove. The pigs flourished and increased, and their descendants provide sport and food for adventurous hunters at the present day. About four miles from Portage Bay on the Kenepuru arm of the Pelorus Sound, one of the numerous pit villas brought to light by clearing the land, may be seen. At Ferndale, on the opposite side of Kenepuru, are the sepulchural mounds, from which it was first ascertained that the ancient inhabitants of the country practised cremaOyster Bay is about a mile east of Ilakahaka by road. Beyond Oyster Bay the road continues along Kalcapau, Ocean Bay and Robinhood Bay till it finally reaches White’s Bay, close to where the bridle track taps the open level land on the Wairau Plain, about eighteen and a half miles from Picton, and twelve miles from Blenheim. Mr Ironsides went up Wairau on his way from Ngakuta to assist to inter the Europeans who were slain in the ghastly Wairau massacre on that ill-fated day of June, 1843. From Tua Marina, the “Look Out” hill of the Maoris, and the scene of the massacred, vou may now gaze across the

fertile plain of the Wairau River, dotted with villages and farms, across the willowed banks of Spring Creek, away towards the sea oyer the Marshlands, while far in the distance to the south lies the pretty little town of Blenheim, the capital of the province of Marlborough. Gold was first discovered in Marlborough in the Wakamarina River in April, 1864. From the source of this river to Mount Stokes on the shore of Cook Strait, the hills are composed of Melamorphic rock. Within these hills lie the Wakamarina and Mahakipawa goldfields, and the Endeavour Inlet antimany mines. On the road from Blenheim to Christchurch, the bus stops at the little town of Kaikoura, nestling down between the high mountain range and the sea. It is part of a delta of about 8000 acres, settled in the later days of the Marlborough Province, and like many of the towns of the north of the South Island, has Maori associations. It is situated in the middle of the bay of the same name, and as in Maori times still furnishes a good supply of Koura (crayfish), which gave the town it. name. The pa, which at one time was a strong place of the Nga-i-taku tribe is now deserted, but its ditches and ramparts may still be seen on the crest of the ridge overlooking the town.