Captain Cook party takes 'two birds with one stone' approach

Thursday, 10 May 2018

The Endeavour replica, bound for Picton in November 2019.

National plans to commemorate Captain Cook's arrival in New Zealand will look a little different in Marlborough.

The region will use the 250th commemorations to highlight the dual significance of two landing sites, Ship Cove (Meretoto) and the Wairau Bar (Te Pokohiwi).

After a whistle-stop tour of heritage sites, from left, Ministry of Culture and Heritage staff Christine Watson and Karyn McLean, Totaranui 250 Trust co-chair Peter Jerram, Dame Jenny Shipley, Totaranui 250 Trust co-chair Raymond Smith and Totaranui 250 Trust general manager Alice Taylor.

The sites are home to Captain Cook's first landing site in Marlborough, at Ship Cove, and the first landing site of Polynesian settlers in New Zealand, at the Wairau Bar - sometimes dubbed the 'birthplace of New Zealand'.

Totaranui Trust general manager Alice Taylor said commemorations in Marlborough would be unique, as the two sites demonstrated New Zealand's dual heritage.

Captain Cook made five visits to Ship Cove and spent a total of 105 days there, more than anywhere else in New Zealand.

Wairau Bar is home to the earliest graves in New Zealand.

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Part of the Wairau Bar collection on display at Canterbury Museum.

'This gives us the opportunity to have two perspectives on the first landing at the commemorations,' Taylor said.

'It also allows us to create a stage where we can talk about important New Zealand voyages throughout history.'

A Captain Cook memorial at Ship Cove marks the explorer's favourite anchorage in New Zealand.

Former prime minister Dame Jenny Shipley visited Marlborough earlier this month to scope out the areas where the Tuia Encounters 250 celebrations would take place.

Shipley, who co-chairs the Tuia Encounters 250, visited the first landing site, the Picton Foreshore and Waikawa Marae.

A landing re-enactment at Ship Cove in January 1970.

The Tuia Encounters 250 was a national committee organising commemorations at four of Cook's landing places in New Zealand.

These included Gisborne, Ship Cove, the Bay of Islands, and the Coromandel Peninsula.

Commemorations in Marlborough would begin with a visit from a replica of The Endeavour in late November 2019, as it was not available on January 15, 2020, which was when Cook landed in Ship Cove 250 years ago.

The Endeavour replica would hopefully spend two or three days in Picton, where people could go aboard, as well as spending time at Ship Cove in the Marlborough Sounds.

Accompanying The Endeavour would be four waka, three waka houroua, the New Zealand navy and a range of other maritime vessels.

Nationally, the commemorations would 'recognise New Zealand's dual heritage and how Europeans and iwi have spent 250 years together', Shipley said.

As part of Tuia Encounters 250 commemorations, the Ministry of Education planned to introduce a new subject into the school curriculum.

The curriculum, set to commence in 2019, would teach students about the first encounters between Māori and Europeans.

Marlborough District councillor Mark Peters said if finding out about the significance of these events came thanks to supplying an education and linking that together, 'then fantastic'.

'Everyone knows about Ship Cove and Cook after coming here so many times, but there's so few people who know about the Wairau Lagoons and the part that they play in the history of the country, let alone the history of this region,' Peters said.

The Wairau Bar, near the Wairau Lagoons, was one of the most significant finds in the Pacific as it held the earliest graves in New Zealand.

At least four of these graves belonged to first-generation Polynesian settlers.

Totaranui 250 Trust co-chair Peter Jerram said the significance of the Wairau Bar site was not yet recognised.

'When we took Dame Jenny down [to the Wairau Bar], there were a whole lot of signs that said don't swim here, don't catch fish here, don't put your boat out there … but there was not a single sign anywhere saying that it held one of the most significant archeological sites in New Zealand,' Jerram said.

Shipley said the events would be a place 'where every New Zealander could stand'.

'Tuia, which the commemorations were named after, means 'bound together by finding space in common',' she said.