14.06 Ocean Beach & Havelock North: Findings & Discoveries

6.A View from Ahuriri (in Napier) towards Westshore

Often in life we are searching. In searches there are three possible results. We don't find what we're looking for. We do find what we're looking for. Or, we actually discover something, great or small, something we weren't precisely looking for but which we found in spite of or, perhaps, because of our search for something else. Successful searches, in other words, yield findings and, more rarely, discoveries. Discoveries come with a measure of surprise.

The photo above seems to hold no surprises. It was taken from a shore in the Ahuriri district of Napier, where Jean and I are currently living. From the photo you might deduce that this location isn't particularly swimmer-friendly. Indeed, it isn't. Napier's main waterfront is little better. It has what's called a 'shingle beach'. The photo below shows what that's like. The shingle beach and the reportedly treacherous waters immediately offshore insure that people don't come to Napier to swim or surf.

6.B Typical Beach Aggregate along Napier's Waterfront

Because we've been anticipating at least one visitor who would want to go swimming, Jean and I decided we needed to search for a swimmer-friendly beach. Last Saturday we headed south out of Napier to a place called Ocean Beach, reported to have a broad and long sandy beach. As the crow flies, Ocean Beach is about thirty kilometers (or eighteen miles) from our apartment in Ahuriri. The drive there without pause took us somewhat over an hour. The photos below depict some of what we saw at the beach.

6.C Motu O Kura (Bare Island) in the Distance and Surf and Sand Close-at-hand

6.D Driftwood at Ocean Beach

6.E Bringing a Surf Boat Ashore with Cape Kidnappers Headlands Beyond

6.F Footprints and Surf at Ocean Beach

As the photos suggest, Ocean Beach wasn't crowded. There were no sunbathers or swimmers, just some surfers and walkers. As is seemingly typical in New Zealand, a surf life saving club is housed at the beach, affording a measure of accommodation and safety to visitors. I suppose most people seen at Ocean Beach are visitors. The village there appears to have no more than a score of cottages (or 'bachs' in Kiwiese). Yet, according to Surf Forecast.com, Ocean Beach can become crowded. 

The trip to and from the beach had its own unanticipated compensations. Here, below, are some photos of the Maraetotara and Tukituki hinterlands along Ocean Beach Road, which connects Ocean Beach to the world. We passed a number of vineyards and sheep stations. The country was and is a bit dry for this time of year, but no matter. New Zealand is always beautiful.

6.G A View from Ocean Beach Road

6.H Another View

6.I A Countryside Beauty

6.J Te Mata Peak in the Distance; Tukituki River in Foreground

6.K Hills and Brush

When Jean and I turned back from Ocean Beach, we elected to take a slight detour into the town of Havelock North,  a suburb of Hastings. Havelock North, Hastings, and Napier all take their names from men prominent in 19th Century Imperial India. You won't see a statue of Henry Havelock, the town's namesake, anywhere in town (You could travel to Trafalgar Square in London for that). Instead the town's memorial green is dedicated to the town's war dead, more than ever remembered in 2014, a century since the onset of WWI. New Zealand's participation in that war through ANZAC (the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) is solemnly remembered every April 25th (See Blogpost 13.16) and is invariably remembered in New Zealand towns and cities with memorials of one sort or another.

6.L Memorial Cenotaph and Christmas Tree, Havelock North

'Havelock North Village', as it's called, serves as the prosperous town's central business district ('CBD') or downtown. Unusual for Kiwi towns is the prominence of one of its churches, St Luke's Anglican. Its general appearance reminds me of churches I've seen in Sweden, of all places.

6.M St Luke's Anglican Church, Havelock North

6.N St Luke's Green

6.O Tower & Buttressing, St Luke's Anglican Church

Two aspects of the St Luke's edifice deserve comment. Firstly, one doesn't ordinarily see New Zealand churches with towers. Unless a congregation has the means to erect a highly earthquake-resistant tower, a tower won't be erected. Substantial towers are mostly found on cathedrals (See here, for example). St Luke's is an exception. Secondly, the church building is exceptional in having buttressing. Given the frequency of earthquakes in New Zealand, one wonders why more buildings, sacred or secular, don't incorporate buttressing.

Before leaving Havelock North we patronized a shop or two and a craft fair being held in the CBD. Currently there seem to be numerous fairs in and about the Hawke's Bay Region, probably because of the impending Christmas holiday. On our way out of town we discovered a 'figgery', Te Mata Figs, where we purchased dried figs and a walnut-and-fig log marketed as 'salame di fichi'. Apparently the mild, comparatively dry climate of this part of New Zealand favors fig growing, not to mention a wide variety of other fruits. The Hawke's Bay Region is one of New Zealand's primary fruit growing regions. A review of New Zealand's 'fruit-growing possibilities' may be found here.

The one possibility precluded in our fact-finding trek to Ocean Beach was the possibility of a sand beach near Ahuriri. Sunday, following our outing to Ocean Beach, on a walkabout Jean and I discovered a sand beach in Westshore, the neighborhood just visible across the waters in the lead photo (6.A), above. The beach doesn't have the sunny sand colour of Ocean Beach, nor its extent, nor its wild setting. But it's within walking distance of our apartment and it, too, hosts a surf life saving club. We had traveled some distance only to discover something suitable virtually right under our noses. Nonetheless, we'll probably return to Ocean Beach, at least once, just as we've returned to New Zealand. The views are great and perhaps there's something to be discovered along the way.

Warm regards,
Tim (& Jean)

P.S. This past Tuesday Jean went the distance to see patients in Wairoa.  She and others employed by the Hawke's Bay District Health Board ('HBDHB') were flown to the clinic and small hospital that the HBDHB maintains in Wairoa. Here's a picture of the Air Napier plane in which she flew, providing her first experience in what I call a 'puddle jumper'. The experience in the air and in Wairoa was a good one.

6.P Air Napier Piper PA31 Navajo

6.Q Air Traffic Control Tower @ Hawke's Bay Airport

14.05 Hawke's Bay: National Identity and National Colours

5.A Saffron Clouds over Hawke Bay at Sunset, 27 November 2014, Seen from the Napier Promenade

'To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven' (Eccl 3:1). That's a Biblical perspective that can give one pause at any time. The verse came to mind when I reviewed the photo above, taken on the walk Jean and I took following our Thanksgiving dinner this past Thursday. For the record, Kiwis don't yet have a thanksgiving day in the national calendar. And if they did it wouldn't come in the spring, presumably, but sometime in the austral autumn, which in New Zealand might well place such a holiday in, say, May or June, when the harvests are well along or even complete. All of which is a back-handed way of saying that we observed Thanksgiving out of season and out of place this year. Yet thanksgiving was due (It's always due).

In a foreign land perhaps because of one's own displacement one can't but notice what's out of place and what's in place. What's in place is what helps identify a place. And what's out of place is—what else?—foreign and perhaps undesirable.

An instance of the out-of-place became evident this past Monday here in the Hawke's Bay Region. A proposal emanated in Hastings, the large nearby town south of Napier. The proposal, which made the front-page headline of the print edition of Hawke's Bay Today, was to form an 'Islamic State of Aotearoa' in the Hawke's Bay Region. The newspaper story didn't clarify whether the proponent of the idea had some specific locale in mind or whether the new state would be more a community of mind than a polity in place. The newspaper report did make clear that the mayor of Hastings didn't regard the Islamic State idea as having any place in New Zealand. Undoubtedly the mayor's sentiments would be seconded by a vast majority of his constituents and by Kiwis elsewhere.

In a democracy elected leaders, among other things, are expected to stay in tune with popular sentiment. If they don't, they and their parties can be punished at the polls. This isn't to say leaders can't and shouldn't ever try to lead public sentiment. On the contrary, a politician who never takes a risk in leading or guiding public opinion or helping the public to resolve a question or issue is unlikely to be held in high regard, at least not for long. In the end in a democracy the people are left to judge the politicians, but history (as it were) judges both peoples and their politicians.

And that brings me to history-in-the-making here in New Zealand, the remaking or retaining of a major national symbol: the New Zealand national flag.  Apparently at the instigation of the current prime minister, Mr John Key, in the coming two years Kiwis will participate in national discussions, debates, and referendums about the national flag. In 2015 they will be asked to decide what alternative design might best supplant the current Kiwi flag. In 2016 they will be asked whether the chosen alternative should in fact supplant the current national flag, shown here below.

5.B The National Flag of New Zealand (Adopted in 1902)

Against a blue field a Union Jack holds the upper left corner, or canton, and a four-star representation of the Southern Cross constellation emblazons the right half of the field. The flag was adopted at a time when New Zealand was a crown colony in the British Empire. While the country has long ago shed that status (in 1907), the country remains in the British Commonwealth of Nations and moreover continues to recognize the British monarch as the head of state. 

One can say that New Zealand has a beautiful and striking flag. Unfortunately, one can't say that it has a distinguished flag. Au contraire. Take a look at the flag of New Zealand's neighbor across the Tasman Sea.

5.C National Flag of Australia (Adopted in 1901)

Despite the presence of the seven-pointed 'Commonwealth Star' beneath the Union Jack and despite the presence of all-white stars on the Australian flag (versus red-with-white-trim stars on the New Zealand flag), the flags of these neighboring countries are very similar. They're easily confused.  For example in 1984 when Australia's prime minister, Mr Bob Hawke, was on an official state visit to Canada, he was greeted in Ottawa by a sea of New Zealand national flags mistakenly held aloft in his honour. That is but one instance of a confusion widely observed and acknowledged by Aussies and Kiwis, whatever their views on traditional or novel flag designs for their homelands.

Suggestions to change the design of the New Zealand national flag apparently first surfaced in the 1970s. The debate has waxed and waned ever since. Just this past October New Zealand's national cabinet agreed on the aforementioned referendums. No doubt it's hoped these referendums and the discussions and debates preceding them will bring some closure to an issue of national identity. Numerous alternative New Zealand flag designs have been proposed over the last 40 years. Some of those designs can be seen here, albeit with some irrelevant flag designs in the mix, including alternative Australian flag designs. 

Apparently Australia has had a flag debate of its own, also starting in the 1970s. At least as reported in Wikipedia the Australia flag debate has been partly fueled by the issue of whether Australia should become a republic, divesting itself of the British crown as head of state. So far as I can discern, the republic-versus-monarchy question plays no role in Kiwi discussions about a new national flag. Indeed, Kiwi advocates of a new national flag adamantly argue that supporting the adoption of a novel flag doesn't entail anti-royalism.

I believe the Kiwi flag issue has nothing to do with who caps New Zealand's polity--whether monarch or president--but who counts in the polity and therefore how the polity is to be identified. When you cut through the verbiage and sort through the novel designs you can't help but come away with the sense that those supporting a novel Kiwi flag want to move away from the Britishness of the current flag--with the Union Jack in the canton. Those who wish to preserve the existing flag argue (among other points) that so many of the novel flag designs incorporate Māori design elements exclusively, implicitly excluding the role of British or other foreign immigrants in creating the New Zealand state, economy, and culture. These immigrants have a name in Kiwi culture: Pākehā. Kiwi culture is in fact a blend of Māori and Pākehā practices and values cultivated (and at times mis-cultivated) ever since the signing in 1840 of the Treaty of Waitangi, as discussed in Blogpost 13.04. The issue of New Zealand's flag design is an issue of who counts in the polity called New Zealand and how that significance is consigned in the national flag, if you will.

5.D National Flag of Canada (1957-1965), Similar to Predecessors

Arguably fifty years ago the Canadians were wrestling with the same issue. Anglophone Canadians, populating the vast majority of that country's territory, were happy enough to identify with Canada's British heritage. The Canadian national flag incorporated a Union Jack just as the Kiwi flag does today, albeit against a red field. Francophone Canadians, descendants of the French pioneers who created Quebec, bristled under the perception that the national flag emblazoned their status as second-class citizens. After discussion and debate and following royal assent in 1965 Canada adopted the dignified and distinguished flag that serves to this day. Canadians of all persuasions and stations have rallied around their national colours ever since.

5.E National Flag of Canada

If the Kiwis are to adopt a new flag, there will be no point in adopting one unless it erases any suggestion of second-class citizenship and unless it honors both the Māori and Pākehā contributions to New Zealand's polity. How do you do that in a Kiwi context? There are some ready emblems that Kiwi folk recognize, whatever their political or cultural convictions. The two most relevant ones that come to my foreign mind are kiwi bird and silver fern images. Of the two images the latter arguably would better serve on a national flag.

As it happens the national rugby union team, the All Blacks, wear black shirts emblazoned with the silver fern. There is no formal state church in New Zealand but the gatherings for All Black matches come close to being religious observances, observances in which virtually all Kiwis participate (if only indirectly) and in which all Kiwis count as one. The All Blacks thus serve not only as sportsmen but as 'priests' whose rites on the rugby fields serve to unify Kiwis of all places and station. It should come as no surprise that Mr Key, New Zealand's current prime minister, has suggested that the silver fern against a black field serve as the basis and perhaps entirety of a new national flag.

If a new national flag is adopted, hopefully it won't be subject to the kind of confusion that vexes the current flag. It couldn't be regarded as an advance if a new, merely white-on-black Kiwi flag could be readily confused with white-on-black flags favoured by pirates and terror-loving entities. Colours are critical elements of flag design. New Zealand, of all places, needn't bring a limited colour palette to a new flag. 

For everything there is a season and a time. Perhaps the time has come for change; perhaps not. Kiwis, like it or not, are now afforded a chance to decide on their national colours.  Whatever their decision, at least this foreigner will be following their decision with interest, seeing the impending discussions as an outgrowth of the polity or national community stemming from the Treaty of Waitangi, the community called New Zealand or Aotearoa. Long may her colours fly, whatever they be.

Warm regards,
Tim (& Jean)

PS. The news out of Hastings provided an entrée to this week's blogpost. And, while I'm at it, I'll use Hastings as a hook for sharing photos taken on a recent visit to the town. I don't expect to write a post about Hastings, so the photos and comments below will have to serve as my 'hi' and 'goodbye' to Napier's nearest neighbor. Napier and Hastings were both affected by the earthquake of 1931. It should come as no surprise that Hastings, like Napier, has its own treasure of post-1931 buildings exhibiting Art Deco motifs. Here are some examples from the Hasting central business district.

5.F Focal Point Cinema & Cafe on Heretaunga St East

5.G Former Public Trust Office Serving as a Bar & Restaurant

5.H The Hastings Health Centre Queen Street Facade

5.I Hastings Health Centre along Russell St North

5.J Russell St Walkway at the Hastings Central Mall

The people of Hastings don't just bask in their Art Deco heritage. They've obviously made efforts to beautify the town. Perhaps one of the most remarkable efforts in the entire town is the placement of a fountain in what is called the 'Hastings Central Mall'. If you look at the photo immediately below you might say there's nothing particularly remarkable about this fountain. Fountains are urban fixtures all over the world. Moreover, the placement of stylized, stainless-steel Christmas trees in the fountain, you might say, is hardly remarkable. I would agree.

5.K Fountain in Hastings Central Mall

What's remarkable about this fountain is the mainline track of the Palmerston North - Gisborne Line, which goes smack through the middle of the fountain. I've never seen the likes of this anywhere. Nor would I, a railway man, have ever expected to see the likes of it. Yet in a Kiwi context it works. I'd say Hastings is all the better for it. 

5.L View of the Hastings Central Mall Fountain with Hastings Clock Tower in the Background

PPS, 24 March 2016 [New Zealand Time]. This evening the results of New Zealand's final-round flag referendum were announced. Somewhat more than 2.1 million Kiwis, about 68% of eligible voters, participated in this referendum. An earlier referendum, in 2015, had given voters an opportunity to select an alternate to New Zealand's long-standing national flag (See Wikipedia here). The voting public decisively embraced the extant New Zealand flag, 56.6 percent voting for that flag and 43.1 percent (or, according to some sources, 43.2 percent) voting for the alternate flag, shown below. 

14.04 Cape Kidnappers: A Tabulation of Tākapu

4.A The Saddle Colony of Tākapu at Cape Kidnappers

This past Saturday morning Jean and I visited Cape Kidnappers, about twenty kilometers (twelve miles) southeast of Napier. We wanted to see the cape and to see the cape's most famous resident: the Australasian gannet, also known as the tākapu. 'Tākapu' is the Māori word for this gannet. Most adult tākapu abide primarily in New Zealand. Some live in mainland Australia and Tasmania. Some of the adult birds residing in New Zealand and apparently all juvenile birds migrate to Australia during the Southern Hemisphere's winter. 


Jean and I were drawn to visiting the cape largely because of easy access. There are two tours that enable visitors to view the cape and its birds from late September into April. One tour takes the 'high' road and the other the 'low' to reach the tip of the cape. Cape Kidnappers defines the southernmost reach of Hawke Bay (The body of water lost the apostrophe in its name just a few years ago by government edict). 

The low tour, run by Gannet Beach Adventures, enables visitors to ride out on tractor-drawn trailers, to a place where they can disembark and hike up to the tip of the cape. If Jean and I revisit the cape we'll probably take the low tour—along and on the beach—just for a different perspective. The low tour only departs at times of low tide. As it happened we took one of the regularly scheduled, guided high tours, offered by Gannet Safaris Overland Ltd. The Safari guide took his bus-van riders through the Cape Kidnappers Station, which occupies some 6000 acres (about 2400 hectares) of the cape's headlands. The station not only serves as a sheep-and-cattle station (or ranch), it encompasses a high-end golf and eco resort called 'The Farm at Cape Kidnappers'. Here below are some shots taken in our travel overland to and from the head of the cape.

4.B Lodging at the Farm at Cape Kidnappers

4.C Grazing Sheep

4.D Faulted Cliff Facing Hawke Bay

4.E Grass and Brush, Cape Kidnappers

4.F Cape Kidnapper Slope Erosion -- Caused by Rabbit Burrowing

4.G More Evidence of Rabbit-Caused Slope Erosion

4.H A Flock of Clouds above a Flock of Sheep

The community of gannets on the Cape Kidnappers headland reportedly constitute the largest mainland gathering of any kind of gannet anywhere in the world. Before human beings showed up in New Zealand—apparently by best estimate in the late 13th Century A.D.—the islands were a veritable bird paradise. Before the human era the only mammals in New Zealand were bats and, along the coasts, seals. Some of the birds from the early human era in New Zealand are now extinct, most notably the moa. The five kiwi species, a modest bunch, have managed so far to survive. The kiwi name was eventually appropriated to refer not only to these nocturnal foraging birds but also to New Zealand nationals, be they Māori or non-Māori (See Blogpost 13.04). Numerous indigenous birds besides the kiwi managed to retain their Māori names in common New Zealand discourse. Not so the tākapu. 

But no matter to the tākapu or the gannet, an almost unflappable bird. 'Unflappable' would be a misnomer were I not using the term metaphorically.  The birds do fly, after all, and they fly and dive magnificently. They are unflappable in that they are largely unperturbed by human presence, at least if humans are on good behavior (no shouting, running, and so forth). And they're rather orderly in other obvious ways. 

For one, they're organized into so-called 'colonies'. There are four colonies on the cape and each colony has been given a name: Black Reef, Plateau, Saddle, and Whalebone Beach. For another, the colonies favor table-like areas, tabulae, if you will. From a distance each colony almost looks like the tent encampment of a Roman legion. I suppose the use of the term 'colony', derived from the Latin colonia, is at least somewhat appropriate. See more evidence of tākapu orderliness here below.

4.I Plateau Colony with Cape Kidnapper Navigation Light at Left

4.J Plateau Colony with Gannet Safari Tour Bus on Right

4.K Whalebone Beach Colony

The gannets are beautiful birds exquisitely designed to capture squid and fish in high-speed (100 kph) dives. Here in these pictures below we see not the diving but rather the nesting activity of the birds. 

4.L A Plateau Colony Tākapu 

4.M Tākapu and Their Nests in a Row

The chicks will all be out and about in December and January and then take their first flight in late April—by undertaking a 2800 km (1700 mile) journey that entails crossing the Tasman Sea to Australia. How's that for starters! The young gannets spend two to three years in Australia, then return to New Zealand, seeking mates. In their fifth year of life they settle down, as it were, mating and nesting in New Zealand. Most Australasian gannets spend the rest of their lives, twenty-five to forty years in length, in New Zealand. Clearly these birds are more Kiwi than Aussie or, rather, tākapu than mere gannet. 

How does one assess something like the Cape Kidnappers bird venture... I mean for those who like myself can't count themselves as avid birdwatchers? My only prior bird watching, perhaps unsurprisingly, was during the previous stay in New Zealand, when Jean and I visited New Zealand's first kiwi sanctuary in Otorohanga and visited the country's largest ecological island at Maungatautari (as recounted in Blogpost 13.08). Before the appearance of human beings in what is now called New Zealand or Aotearoa the avians were the predominate animal species. The avians are a link to the not-so-distant pre-human past of New Zealand. And in a place like Maugatautari one can begin to sense the magnificence of that past. To be sure, New Zealand is surely still a very beautiful country. But for foreigners with extended stays in New Zealand, I'd say bird watching, if but for part of a day, isn't just for the birds. It's to gain a better appreciation of where New Zealand has come from and what her people have managed to regain.

4.N A Red-billed Gull Comes Nosing Around and Is Watched by a Tākapu

The gannets at Cape Kidnappers seem to be doing well. Depending on the source, one learns there are 13,000 or 16,000 or 20,000 gannets in total in the four cape colonies. Whatever the number, with the efforts of the Cape Kidnappers Station and New Zealand's Department of Conservation the colonies are flourishing at the cape. In the spirit of James Lipton's Exaltation of Larks I'd merely suggest that a community of Australasian gannet colonies, such as at the cape, be referred to as a tabulation of tākapu. In any event and except for the post scriptum below this tabulation of last weekend's bird-watching expedition comes to a close with...

Warm regards,

Tim (& Jean)

P.S. Last Friday evening we attended a 'Tuscan Summer' concert performed by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra at the Napier Municipal Theatre. Napier was one of several venues in the last swing of the NZSO before wrapping up its 2014 tour season. This concert included a performance of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, Op. 64, in which an American guest artist was to have been the violin soloist. Two days before the Napier concert that soloist canceled his appearance because of illness. The NZSO concertmaster,  Vesa-Matti Leppänen, stepped into the breach.  Leppänen performed the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto entirely from memory. The Napier audience was rather impressed, rightly so, I'd say. The critic for the New Zealand Herald, on the other hand, was unable to summon more than a perfunctory recognition of what was accomplished. Critics, I suppose, don't want to be seen to be in the business of saying 'Wow!' Yet I think we were right to be wowed by what Mr Leppänen accomplished. And we're right to be wowed by the beauty, elegance, and mystery of the world we've been given to inhabit and steward. The tākapu is another reminder of the wonder of this world, thanks be to God.

4.O Sunset over Cape Kidnappers as Seen from the Napier Marine Domain