 mmediately offshore from New Plymouth is the Sugar Loaf Islands Marine Park. Numerous fish are found here together with fur seals which come ashore in the non-breeding season. As the islands are free of rats they are a haven for birds, with nine species of nesting seabirds, including black-backed and red-billed gulls, white-fronted tems and at least three types of petrel. The Sugar Loaves themselves are the eroded stumps of what is probably Taranaki's oldest volcano, which was active about one million years ago.
Being one of the westernmost points of the mainland and thus the closest to Australia, Taranaki is often the landing point for wind-blown strays from across the Tasman. The first recorded sightings for spinetailed swifts were from Taranaki - first at Manaia in 1888 and then at New Plymouth in 1915. From everywhere in Taranaki the majestic cone of Mt Taranaki dominates the landscape and photographs of the mountain with a contented cow in the foreground have become one of the cliches of coffee-table books. Although there is little sign of volcanic activity today, Mt Taranaki should be regarded as dormant rather than extinct. It has been the site of much volcanic activity, the most recent eruption taking place around AD1775. By volcanic standards this seems to have been fairly mild, but the eruptions that took place around AD 1500 and 1665 were much more violent and most of the vegetation that now clothes the upper areas of the mountain has grown since. The perfect symmetry of Taranaki’s cone is marred when seen from certain angles by the large subsidiary peak, rather like a shoulder, on its southwestern slopes. This is Fanthoms Peak, named for Fanny Fantham who in March 1889, aged 19, became the first woman to climb it. At various altitudes on Mt Taranaki, differing types of vegetation can be found. The lower slopes have typical broadleaf-podocarp forest and although this appears to be dominated by rata and rimu there are kamahi, mahoe and tree fuchsia as well. Further up the mountain these trees gradually give way to totara and kaikawaka, the bush in turn giving way to scrub such as leatherwood. Higher up the scrub is replaced by small herbaceous mountain plants. These include some endemic mountain daisies and a rare fem, Polystichum cystostegia, which flourishes in rockstrewn gullies. A number of roads provide access to the mountain, with walking tracks leading from them. Also on the slopes of the mountain is the Pukeiti Rhododendron Trust, which boasts a fine collection of introduced trees and shrubs. Yet it was fossils of moa and other birds that attracted a number of early naturalists to the province. In January 1847 Walter Mantell, while searching for moa bones, made a large find of fossils near Ohawetokutoku Pa, situated to the south of Mt Taranaki. Among the many moa remains were the bones of a bird at that stage unknown to Europeans, the takahe. Less than a year later this bird was officially described by Dr Richard Owen in London and named after Mantell. According to Maori tradition, a moa lived on the heights of Mt Taranaki with two giant lizards. In 1839 the German geologist Ernst Dieffenbach, accompanied by two Maori guides, attempted to climb Taranaki. On reaching the snow-line, the guides refused to continue. Dieffenbach wrote:
The mountains are peopled with mysterious and misshapen animals; the black points, which the Maori sees from afar in the dazzling snow are fierce and monstrous birds; a supernatural spirit breathes on him in the evening breeze, or is heard in the rolling of a loose stone.
Even today rumours persist of extinct birds being found alive in the remoter areas of Taranaki. Moa, whekau, piopio, huia and tieke have all been reported at one time or another, and some of these reports have appeared authentic enough for the authorities to have checked them. In fact, Taranaki was outside the known historical range of the huia, even though there are two Place names incorporating 'huia’ in the area - Wharehuia (the house of the huia) near Stratford, and Huiakama (nimble huia) on the Whangamomona road, which would seem to indicate they were once found there. |
