ENCHANTED COAST

New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 551, 13 January 1950, Page 12

ENCHANTED COAST

KAIKOURA COAST, by W. J. Elvy; the Hundalee Scenic Board, through Whitcombe & Tombs Ltd. Price, 10/6, F some painstaking settler of the second or third generation were now to

do for each 100-mile stretch of New Zealand coast what Mr. Elvy has done for the Kaikoura coast ‘and the reserves under the control of the Hundalee Scenic Board, some useful and fascinating information would be snatched from a fast-encroaching oblivion. Loving the coast on’ which he worked as a surveyor and along which he lived for more than ‘50 years, Mr. Elvy, who is the official secretary of the Scenic Board, set to work to record as much about the history, traditions, and placenames as he could remember or collect from settlers older than himself. He begins his book (disclaiming infallibility) with an outline of the Maori history, the traditional history of the tribes, and the conquests and the raids, with stories of the wily behaviour of Te Rauparaha, Kekerengu, and others. He devotes the second half of the book, the more fascinating to those fortunate few who have spent their lives in this enchanted area, to accounts of various‘ . stories connected with the place-names, from Tirohanga in the north to Hundalee in the south. An appendix shows the composition of the Hundalee Scenic Board and gives an outline of its duties and aims. There are three dozen or so photographs and a map of the coastline with main streams and_ settlements marked. Every Coaster will want to own a copy of this book; and every ex-Coaster too. Greenstone treasures will be brought out and stories will be told of camping at the Black Miller, early buggy-trips round treacherous Ohau Point, the hollow ring beneath the wheels (was there an escape tunnel below the road?) round Sandy Bay, the eight-foot octopus, the huge crayfish at Paparoa Point; there will be no end to the entertainment for all Coasters’ and visitors to those Streams and bays and rocky points. And some of the stories, such as the one (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) about the owl god and the dead child Meru-a genuine Maori tale of Ancient Mariner type-the £350 moa egg, and old Barny Riley’s goings on, will appeal to a wide public of readers who do not know Kaikoura. But for those of us who know Kaikoura, the names and tales in Mr. Elvy’s book will sing: Kekerengu, Waiau-toa, Mangamaunu, Hapuka and Puhi Puhi; it will please us to see the name Pat Curran underneath photographs of karaka trees on the Paia Point road or shine of waters at Rangi-inu-wai-for who has ever known the Coast Road better than Pat Curran, on the service car? We will all read of Waipapa Bay and the old fig tree with happy memories; atid I, for one, find at last an explanation for my particular nostalgia for this bay and its clear stream, Haumakariri: "Tradition has it that if-one drinks’ the water he will always seek to return to this beautiful spot." And I have always thought it was because I spent there my happiest birthday, my sixth, dragging up giant kelp, paddling in the lace-edged waves, eating too many of the wild-growing cape gooseberries, and

climbing that ancient old fig tree.

J.