short distance from Tutira is Waitere. This relatively small less than 2000 hectares - area of scrubland lies inland from Tutira towards the Mohaka River, off the Napier-Gisborne Highway. Today it is in the process of regenerating after a series of disastrous fires and is of note because it shelters the largest group of kiwi in Hawke's Bay - between 30 and 50 birds. These birds have disappeared from virtually every other area because of the burning-off of their habitat.

The Mohaka River has for a long time been a favourite with anglers but now it has another significant claim to fame. For many years, when people talked of fossils in New Zealand, they invariably meant only marine animals such ammonites, as it was widely believed that because of our isolation land animals such as the dinosaurs had never reached these islands. Then in the mid-1980s an amateur palaeontologist, Joan Wiffen, from Haumoana in Hawke's Bay, found an eight-centimetre bone in a tributary of the Te Hoe River, which flows into the Mohaka. Palaeontologists found that this tiny bone came from a medium-sized, two-legged, carnivorous dinosaur called a therapod. It was probably about seven metres long, stood about two metres high, and weighed slightly less than half a tonne. Since then Joan Wiffen and her colleagues have come up with several other dinosaur species, not previously found here.

Moa enthusiast Bill Hartree has also located a number of the nesting sites of moa in the steep Hawke's Bay hillcountry and from the bones nearby he has been able to identify the birds as being Anomalopteryx. He concluded that the moa laid a single egg, which was usually sheltered by rock overhangs. Moa tracks were once to be seen along steep hillsides in several parts of the province, but erosion and stock movements have now destroyed these.

From the Mohaka River north, the country shows the serious erosion which is a feature of the east coast. This erosion has a number of causes but chief among these is over-grazing, and unplanned forest clearance. Many properties which were only marginally viable in better times are now uneconomic. This erosion was greatly accelerated by damage caused by the earthquake of 1931 which was centred near Wairoa. A few small patches of forest remain, mostly along the rivers, and these support mixed companies of native and exotic birds.

From Wairoa itself there are two routes north to Gisborne: the coastal route along State Highway 2 and the inland route via State Highway 36. From a short distance along the inland road there is a turnoff that will take you by way of State Highway 38 to Lake Waikaremoana in the Urewera country and eventually to Rotorua, a detour well worth making.