rom Whakatane, State Highway 2 follows the coast road through the farmlands around Thornton to Matata, named for the fernbird which still can be found around the lagoon opposite the town. It is hard now to imagine that all that remains of the mighty Rangitaiki Swamp, which began to be drained for farmland about 1890, are some large ditches. Black swan are permanent residents of the Matata Lagoon along with many grey ducks, mallards, shovelers and pukeko and occasionally scaup. Large numbers of refugees turn up each shooting season, much to the disgust of frustrated hunters drowning their sorrows at the pub opposite.

About 100 metres east of the Awatatariki Stream, between the railway and the main highway, is a large pohutukawa which has a traditional importance for the local Maori. It was a resting place for travellers and warriors returning home with bones from battlefields further afield. These grisly remains would be hung from the tree while the war party rested.

From Matata a long straight road takes you west towards Tauranga. This is a pleasant drive with pohutukawa clinging to the cliffs, and rows of toetoe and flax between the road and the beach. The kingfisher (kotare) favours the cliff for nesting sites and they sit on the power fines looking for lunch along the roadside verges. Swallows, too, like the cliffs and ceaselessly swoop up and down them chasing insects.

From Matata the road skirts the coast, passing through open farmland until the Kaimai Ranges are reached west of Tauranga. This area has been continuously settled by the Pakeha for over 100 years - much of it originally confiscated from local tribes after the New Zealand Wars and not surprisingly most birds here are exotics: finches, blackbirds, thrushes and starlings along with magpies and mynahs, who spend much of their time dicing with death on the roads.

The long period of European settlement is most clearly evident in Tauranga itself with its fine exotic trees. The macrocarpa on B.J. Farrelly's property at Moffats Road, Bethlehem, is the world’s largest and is so far taller than any growing on the Monterey Peninsula in California, this tree's natural habitat.

'The Elms', in Tauranga itself, marks the site of the first Anglican mission in the Bay of Plenty and some of the trees date from as early as 1838 and are of considerable size. (To get there turn left from Cliff Road into Mirrielees Road and walk up the drive across the railway overpass.) Nevertheless, the best group of trees is almost certainly that at Yatton Park and these date from plantings between 1865 and 1877 by John Alfred Chadwick, an early farmer. Among the finest of these are a Japanese cedar, a Bhutan cypress, a Canary Island pine, a South Queensland kauri and a Bunya pine.

From Tauranga a trip out to the McLaren Falls Park on the TaurangaMatamata road is rewarding. (Turn off State Highway 29 onto McLaren Falls Road 11 kilometres from Tauranga.) Members of the Bay of Plenty Tree Society have planted about 12,000 trees and these should in time be a splendid collection.

On Mayor Island, offshore from Tauranga, stands what is almost surely the country's largest pohutukawa. This tree stands on a track between South East Bay and North West Bay and when measured in 1982 had a trunk diameter of 3.27 metres. The island should make an ideal bird sanctuary as it has large populations of tui, kaka, kereru and korimako. However, although cats have been removed from the island, there are still many pigs and the local owners want these preserved for hunting. While the pigs are present the island has only limited value as a sanctuary.

For a number of years this part of the bay has been patrolled by a pod of 16 orca led by a large male with a distinctive dog-eared dorsal fm. The whales range from here to Cape Karikari in the north and to the Mahia Peninsula in the south.