About Cooks Cove Walkway Please note: The walkway is suitable for medium levels of fitness as • This walkway is closed each year for the lambing there is some hill climbing required. Good, comfortable season from 1 August until the start of Labour Cooks Cove walking shoes are recommended. Weekend (fourth Monday in October). The use of this walkway has been made possible through • The walkway may not be used to gain fishing access Walkway the generous permission of the landowners, Hauiti to or to fishing grounds (fishing Incorporation. Please respect the property, do not disturb or equipment and firearms are prohibited). Tolaga Bay approach farm animals and leave gates as you find them. • Camping is not allowed. Information panels along this walkway tell the story of • Do not light fires. Captain James Cook and the crew of the Endeavour’s • Dogs are not allowed on the walkway. visit to Cook’s Cove (Opoutama), the Māori history of • No mountain biking allowed on this walkway. local iwi Te Aitanga-a-Hauiti, and the excavation of an Safety archaeological site at Opoutama first occupied by Māori. Please remain on the track at all times. The The panels were coastal bluffs are extremely steep and for installed in December ! safety reasons should 2012 and are the result not be approached. of a joint partnership between the Department To report any safety hazards or of Conservation and Te conservation emergencies: Aitanga-a-Hauiti.

Blessing of the information panels at the entrance to Cook’s Cove. Getting there Cooks Cove Walkway is situated at the southern end of Tolaga Bay, 52 km north of Gisborne. On SH35 take the Wharf Road turnoff, 2 km south of Tolaga Bay township. There is a small car park adjacent to the walkway entrance. You can also park at the larger beach car park adjacent to the motor camp, 200 m beyond the entrance.

All photos, unless otherwise credited, are copyright DOC.

Published by: Department of Conservation Turanganui-a-Kiwa/Gisborne Office PO Box 668, Gisborne 4040 June 2014 Editing and design: Publishing Team, DOC National Office

New Zealand Historic Places Trust memorial, commemorating Cook’s visit. History The walkway is named after the cove and the English sailor they dug a well to collect fresh water. They and explorer, Captain James Cook. He visited the area in were also much taken with the Hole-in-the- 1769 as part of his circumnavigation of New Zealand. Wall rock formation. Local Māori The visitors were received with warm and friendly support and the crew's overall At that time the Tolaga Bay area had already been impressions of the bay were extremely inhabited by Māori for many centuries. The main iwi (tribe) positive. living at the bay and using Cook’s Cove for fishing and gathering other seafood was Te Aitanga-a-Hauiti, who Cook’s departure made their homes around the rich, coastal land of Tolaga Cook weighed anchor and left Tolaga Bay Bay and the alluvial flats of the Uawa and Mangaheia rivers. in the early hours of the morning of Sunday There were large cultivations on the flats surrounding the 29 October 1769, after taking on supplies of low hills, and pā (fortified villages) on prominent ridges wood, water and food. and high points, both inland and along the coast itself. The Endeavour visit was well remembered by An estimate of the early population of Tolaga Bay is 1,200 the different hapū (sub-tribes) of Te Aitanga- people, a significant number at that time. a-Hauiti, and there are various accounts describing the Highlights: Track guide kinds of goods that the local people acquired from Cook The Endeavour arrives in Cooks Cove – October 1769 • Make your way Time: 2 hr 30 min (return) and the effect that they had on the local economy. through the ‘Hole in Distance: 5.8 km (return) When James Cook's vessel, the Endeavour, first the Wall’ (Te Kotere Location: Tolaga Bay, 52 km north approached Tolaga Bay, he had already spent two-and- o te Whenua), a of Gisborne a-half weeks exploring the New Zealand coastline. He narrow coastal Facilities: Toilets are available reached Poverty Bay in early October 1769, after a journey cliff ridge, with near the wharf and the cove. There of more than a year, from Plymouth Sound, England, via an impressive sea is no drinkable water on the walk; . arch formed by the Banks wrote: please bring your own. Along with this crew (including able seamen, officers and sea cutting its way ‘Throughout all this District the Cross a small, open paddock to gentlemen) he made a number of records of what he saw, through a narrow people seem free from apprehension begin the Cooks Cove Walkway. providing us with an interesting picture of the past. passage. and as in a state of Profound Peace; The track then climbs through • Inspect the New As the Endeavour anchored in Tolaga Bay, a number of their Cultivations were far more light bush and across open Zealand Historic canoes came alongside bringing the crew fish and kumara. numerous and larger than we saw grassland, keeping mainly to a Places Trust There was a great deal of contact between the locals and them anywhere else, and they had a farm track just below the cliff tops. 1966 memorial, the visitors while the ship was anchored in the bay. far greater quantity of fine Boats, fine After about 20 minutes, you will commemorating Observations of the culture and diversity of the landscape Cloaths, fine carved work; in short the reach a lookout point (120 m above Cook’s visit. One of the crew (Sydney Parkinson) described the country People were far more numerous, and sea level). This spot gives the first • Use the as ‘agreeable beyond description’ and Joseph Banks, the lived in much greater affluence than views of Cook’s Cove itself. The interpretation panel botanist on board, collected 20 new plant species, some of any others we saw’ cove consists of a sheltered inlet shaped as a frame to which the crew sampled. with the weather-beaten Mitre take a photo. The Tahitian high priest Tupaea, who travelled on board Rocks standing to the left of the • Grab a picnic lunch the Endeavour, spent time in discussions with local priests entrance and Pourewa Island at the cove amongst (tohunga) and appears to have made a deep impression as rising up on the right. the picturesque several places were named after him. The track winds down through surroundings. The crew of the Endeavour spent time at the regenerating bush, and after place now known as Cook’s 200 m passes a small pond and Cove (Opoutama) where then enters the coastal flats of the cove.