awakawa, 54 kilometres north-west of Whangarei, is named for the pepper tree, which is relatively common in areas of secondary growth, but there are none in Kawakawa itself One wonders why the town council doesn't plant a few.

Although Russell is only a short distance from Kawakawa by way of the Opua car ferry, take the back road through Taumarere where there are extensive areas of scrub and swamp. You might even be lucky enough to see a fernbird, although its habitat has been greatly reduced.

Besides the large areas of gorse, blackberry flourishes and small clumps of once carefully nurtured exotic trees, as well as lines and yellow irises, are yet another reminder of the economic decline of the north, marking as they do the sites of former homesteads. There are some patches of kauri forest that escaped the logger's axe and there are still a few kiwi along with tui and the bush pigeon or kereru.

The kereru is sometimes called kuku in the north and sometimes also goes by the name 'illegal Tegel'. People here seek to explain their poaching of the kereru with the claim that because it eats the berries of the miro tree it has a unique flavour. I rather suspect that if you fed your Orpington or Leghorn on miro it would taste much the same.

Once called Kororareka, Russell was a major supply port for the many whalers operating in the Pacific in the early part of the nineteenth century. Working from here they relentlessly pursued pods of right whales along the coast.

Russell is now a centre for big-game fishing and the waters off Cape Brett provide marlin, mako sharks and shoals of trevally and other pelagic fish.

At Whangamumu not far from Russell, H. H. Cook established a shore-based whaling station and was the first to mechanise the business by using steam-operated chasers in 1910. He also had an innovative way of trapping humpback whales by driving them through a narrow channel where they became entangled in huge steel nets and were thus easier to harpoon.

Whangamumu can be reached from the Oakura road or by driving along the Rawhiti road from Russell. To reach the site of the whaling station, follow a track over the hill to the harbour. The scenery is delightful and gannets can be seen diving along the coast.

The relentless pressure put on whales, and particularly on such vulnerable species as the right whale, brought a number of species close to extinction and only now, some 40 years later, are they making a comeback. The Department of Conservation estimates there are about 500 right whales in our waters, a 25 per cent increase since 1983. Blue whales and sperm whales are both increasing, with pods of as many as 30 blue whales having been seen recently off the Taranaki coast.

Whales were of considerable importance to the Maon. Although whales at sea were too big to capture, stranded whales were another story and were treated as a windfall. An early missionary in the Bay of Islands, the Rev. John Butler in 1819 observed one such stranding:

This morning all our sawyers ran off, and the Rangihoo people also, after a dead whale which came floating into the harbour. In the afternoon, Mr Marsden, Mr Kendall, myself, Mr Kemp, Mr King, and one of the carpenters went out to see it, and also to obtain some blubber, if possible; when we came to the place we found it almost impossible to come near it for natives. Not less than 50 to 100 naked men were upon it like so many devouring wolves. There were about 20 canoes and about 200 natives . men, women and children. There were many fires on the beach. and some were cooking and some eating, and others at work upon it; the stench of It was suffocating, and we saw one man who had been overcome by it. He looked like a corpse; several were crying and praying over him. A very strong breeze set in, and we were obliged to moor our punt and return overland.

While in this area drive to Oke Bay, favoured by dolphins, which can sometimes be seen close to the shore. This area is also noteworthy for the early scientific work carried out here. While the Endeavour was in the Bay of Islands in December 1769, Joseph Banks collected goatfish, hapuku, blue cod and sea perch here. By coincidence, the St Jean Baptiste, commanded by Jean de Surville, was in the same area only a few days later and they also collected specimens - probably tui, pukeko, kokako, kereru as well as some lizards and the native dog, kuri. Apparently the French appreciated the material collected as much for its culinary qualities as for its scientific interest. The French presented a pair of pigs and a hen and chicken to the local Maori, but as the French are not alone in appreciating new gastronomic possibilities these animals probably did not survive.

It was not until early in the nineteenth century that Pakeha exploration on in the north really began. one luminary who visited the Bay of Islands was Charles Darwin. Arriving in December 1835 from Tahiti, Darwin was decidedly unimpressed with the inhabitants of the Bay of Islands, despite the settlers' tendency to turn New Zealand into as close an approximation of Britain as possible: