About the South: The mystery of Molyneux Bay
Friday, 23 June 2023
An account of an 1844 visit to Waikawa Harbour was given by David Monro who was part of the Deborah Expedition.
It may have been identified as a possible settlement site in the quest for the ‘New Edinburgh’ which eventually became Dunedin.
It is along this part of the coast that ‘Molyneux Bay’ is marked on Cook’s chart, rather than the mouth of the Clutha River 60km to the north.
Sydney Parkinson, the Endeavour’s artist, said it had the appearance of a harbour which they named Molineux’s Harbour after the master of the ship.
Although not discernible as a harbour from Endeavour’s position about eight kilometres offshore, Waikawa is the only one of the indentations on the Catlins coast where there could be an inlet behind a fringe of dunes and low hills.
Monro published his experiences in the Nelson Examiner of July 20, 1844 with a turn of phrase rare amongst the barren prose of other explorers.
It read: “At the head of the large expanse of tide water it has a sluggish, dark brown current, but soon becoming of a more lively character, it flows with a clear stream of the tint into which an angler would long to cast his fly, between perfectly defined high banks, from which the native acacia (kowhai) and the endless variety of New Zealand evergreens bend down till they meet the water. Between the foliage that thus hemmed us in occasional glimpses were obtained of lofty banks of wood brightly illuminated by a brilliant sun, while at every turn of the river as it serpentined about a new landscape disclosed itself, of the same character truly, but still of constant beauty and wild freshness. At some distance ahead of us we heard the fall of water, and soon reached a little cascade of four or five feet in height.”
They had discovered the Niagara Falls.
Waikawa means ‘bitter water’ – perhaps a taste of salt for a visitor who did not expect the tidal water to reach so far inland.
Sir David Monro was Speaker in the House of Representatives from 1861 to 1870.
Morton Mains Disease
Morton Mains Disease caused alarm on Southland farms in the 1930s.
Sheep and lambs failed to thrive on land that clearly lacked a vital nutrient. The supposed inventor of the name, Mr Napper, took umbrage at the suggestion that he was responsible.
He believed that sheep-sickness had its origin in the malnutrition of the breeding ewe.
On October 3, 1934 he wrote: “I am unable to accept any responsibility for the coining of the term Morton Mains Disease. Such an expression would result in stigmatising a perfectly good district and perfectly good farmers. That sheep-sickness is acute with the more progressive farmers of Southland must be admitted. This anomaly can be explained by the fact that these gentlemen can and do grow excellent crops of foodstuffs which, unfortunately, belong to one category. They are mainly starchy foods deficient in protein and other factors and these are the foodstuffs which are offered to our stock during the winter months and the period of gestation.”
Within a few years, cobalt deficiency was identified as the cause of the illness, easily remedied by adding cobalt to drench and salt licks.
Morton Mains Disease turned out to be the same as Bush Sickness in the North Island.