Cape Sanctuary
For the past year or so I've entertained an odd aspiration.
The plan is to pitch my tent and stay a night in the heart of Cape Sanctuary.
A primal slumber that'd be.
Ancient, noctural melodies followed by a dawn chorus would constitute the soundtrack of the 19th Century.
It'd be the ornithological version of Jurassic Park - an aural window into our evolutionary history.
It's a strange passion, I know. Friends and colleagues are forever chiding me for the arcane hobby.
The tenting idea was sparked by a neighbour who said the endemic bird cacophony in this country was once so intense it stung pioneers' eardrums
In stark contrast, back home in present day Hastings I'm woken by the offensive gabble of the exotic Indian mynah. And it gets worse.
For the past four months we've had a possum living in our chimney. Every night I hear it clamber out of its vertical digs, tatter across our tin roof and scratch down the lancewood tree growing against the house.
Truth be told, when he sits atop the chimney foregrounding a full moon, he cuts a cute character.
I mention the mynahs and marsupial only because they underscore how denuded our endemic pickings have become. The dawn chorus has been usurped by noisy invaders. 'Tis highly lamentable.
It's why the spotting of a North Island robin, toutouwai, in Te Mata Park earlier this month, is exceptional. These instances are a welcome recalibration of our regional heritage; a glimpse of how things used to be, used to sound.
It's why I'd like to camp in said sanctuary, eager to hear what great-great-great-grandfather William Story heard when he stepped onto these sonorous Shaky Isles in 1864.
Julie Davey of Hawke’s Bay edged by a stunning run from Sophie Scott in Dannevirke.