Mercury Bay

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 140, 3 September 1927, Page 10

Mercury Bay

White Cliffs Scaled By Cook Preserving the “ Highway ” (Written for THE SUN.) PUBLIC attention has been drawn to Mercury Bay, i'or it is by that name and not “Whitianga” that the spot is best known, through the mooted intention of a Government department to close the road which leads across the peninsula to Coromandel.

TT was here that Cook sealed the white, flat-topped cliff which he named Shakespeare’s Head, for the purpose of observing the transit of the planet Mercury in the course of his astronomical observations. It is to the great navigator that the name Mercury Bay is due. Whitianga, ‘the crossing,” it was called by the natives. It was here, where the tidal river empties itself into the landlocked, isle-fringed bay. that the crossing was made, no doubt through centuries, by the natives travelling up and down the coast on missions, peaceful and otherwise. Back in the 'sixties the wreck of H.M.S. Buffalo, whose timbers are still v isible at low tide from the fine sandy beach, made the name well known to the early pioneers. This member of England's old wooden walls was taught napping in a tremendous easterly “blow” while loading kauri spars for the navy. She was driven ashore with great loss of life. TRAGEDY OF THE 'SIXITES That such a tragedy could occur in this beautiful bay, faced with two leagues of crystal sand, seems almost impossible; but there still remain the ribs of worm-eaten teak to remind one that the storm-god in his anger has neither respect for place nor person. Population was drawn to this spot first by the miles of magnificent kauri bush stretching from range to range and valley to valley, over practically the whole peninsula. Mercury Bay was the centre of this richly-endowed area. For more than half a century it poured a mighty stream of the finest timber in the world into the destroying maw of many timber mills. Great fleets of scows came and went with their chained freights to feed the city factories. Steam driven vessels, among them the wellknown Stella, towed mighty rafts out of the river to feed the city mills. In the bush itself lived and laboured a race of men whose last remnants drifted hence with the passing of the bush, men whose environment, whose characteristics and lives presented a great opportunity for a facile pen, but who seem to have passed into oblivion, “unhonoured and unsung.” The greed of man and the wrath of the fire-god did their work, and did it well. That seemingly inexhaustible • mass of virgin forest grew less and less until the bare hills no longer excited the desire of the timber men. The echoing axe-blow was stilled, and, for the time being, there were signs of stagnation in this vast domain. But this inactivity could not last.

Areas were cultivated. High-grade stock was introduced. Soon there were signs of a new and prosperous era. The race of destroyers had passed away, and a race of producers came into being. To-day the busy factory turns out its first-grade butter with the best of the “farmers' mills.” They no longer speak in terms of “shaky heart,” “rusticated weather-boarding,” "long lengths and short.” Where the old timber lanes existed men do praise or curse the Dairy Control Board ac » rding to their lights, discuss the changing price of “super,” and exchange opinions on the matter of over-run, etc.

Yes, Mercury Bay still has its beauties. They are indestructible. It still has its historic associations, and —more lately discovered —its wealth of swordfish and mako shark. That it always had its mighty harvest of edible fish has been well known, and It is quite a natural course of events that expert fishermen should select it. Now, alas! it is mooted that a long effort to put up a record in the matter of restrictive, stifling legislation is to be extended to this area by closing the only road which leads to the outer world.

I.et us be frank and admit that much of this 20 odd miles of “highway” is only a track. Indeed, it Is only now that the fascines of split battens, laid across the clay surface in some portions of it, are being removed. The service fear pushes its radiator gingerly round many a dangerous bend, and the impoverished county exchequer offers no hope to the settler. Along that track, from Castle Rock, rising like some grand prehistoric structure from the virgin bush of the Coromandel side to the gently flowing Mahakirau Creek on the bay side of the range, there exists still some grand natural scenery, where an occasional New Zealand robin with his jet plumage and snowy breast, flits out to greet the nerve-wracked traveller on that heart-breaking road. It is a problem, but not insurmountable. When that problem is solved Mercury Bay will be opened up to hundreds of tourists. PENINSULA INSULARITY? Only the apathy of the peninsula will allow the official hand to seal up the one “highway” which gives access by land. It is a tribute to the possibilities of Mercury Bay to find Thames, Coromandel and such other centres of population as the peninsula nourishes, rising in their wrath to stay the destroying impulse of an unsympathetic department. —FRANK EYRE.