y comparison the coastal road to Gisborne brings you to the Mahia Peninsula, the main attraction of this locality. While here be sure to visit the Mahia Scenic Reserve. This is a small but beautiful oasis of coastal broadleaf-nikau forest which provides a stark contrast to the surrounding devastated East Coast hillcountry.

Mahia has a distinctive shape, rather like that of a giant fish-hook, and this promontory curving out to sea and then back towards the land serves as a natural whale trap. The echo-location of the whales is confused by the unusual topography and by following the curve of the land they find themselves in shallow water and thus trapped.

To the Maori the capture of a whale was of great importance as it meant a plentiful supply of food for a considerable time. They believed that a large hillock of sand in the area was a 'mauri', a type of talisman which attracted whales ashore. In Tuhoe, Children of the Mist Elsdon Best wrote: 'At Te Mahia, on the East Coast, is a hill or hillock, the shape of which resembles a whale. It is called Ika-whenua; and on it is a spring known as Te Puna a Tinirau, or Tinirau's Spring. This hill is a mauri and has the power of attracting whales to the shore, so they are cast up on the beach.'

It is significant that only the toothed whales which use echo-location have been trapped here. Sperm whales are regularly stranded. along with the pygmy sperm whale (76 of the 114 recorded strandings of this species have been at Mahia). An unusual occurrence here has been the number of simultaneous strandings of two whale species. In 1962 seven false killer whales came ashore along with three pygmy sperm whales; four pygmy sperm whales and a pilot whale in 1972; and a pygmy sperm whale together with a beaked whale in 1980.

Some 40 kilometres north-east of Wairoa are the Morere Hot Springs. Although the springs are not all that marvellous, they are set in a 200-hectare patch of bush - a small remnant of the extensive podocarp and mixed hardwood forests which once clothed the East Coast. Native birds including tui, kereru and bellbirds, are to be found here.

Continuing north the road takes you through a wide variety of habitats which in turn support a variety of wildlife. There are few extensive stands of forest. Most of this was turned into farmland around the turn of the century and a lot of it now seems to be working its way back to its original state. Bad erosion is apparent and where the soil cover has been stripped from the land, ugly blue-grey and yellow patches from the underlying mudstone show through.