Drone footage of Raoul Island and video by underwater cameraman Steve Hathaway offer a glimpse into the value of the Kermadecs as a convergence zone for species from both temperate and sub-tropical regions.
Beloved family binoculars, taken from a salvaged shipwreck, were stolen from a Napier home.
Rod Heaps is offering a cash reward for their safe return, with no questions asked.
Heaps says the binoculars have immense sentimental value and are part of his family’s history.
A family’s favourite pair of binoculars, taken from a salvaged shipwreck, have been stolen from a Napier home.
Now the owner is offering a cash reward for its return.
Rod Heaps got the binoculars from the wreck of the Japanese fishing boat Kinei Maru on Raoul Island, the largest and northernmost of the main Kermadec Islands, in the 80s when he worked there on the island’s weather station.
“After the salvage crew had left they said help yourself to what’s left and of course, the binoculars became part of the feature of Raoul Island while we were there.”
Raoul Island, the biggest in the Kermadec Islands, where the binoculars were recovered in a shipwreck.
When Heaps and his crew’s time on the island ended, they divided what was taken from the wreck. Heaps ended up with the binoculars, which he took home to Hawke’s Bay.
“[The family] just got so much fun and enjoyment out of them because of their exceptional range – looking at the stars and the Moon and all that sort of stuff. And so there’s just been an attachment and they’ve been part of my children’s lives, growing up with them, and I’ve become so attached to them.”
Heaps loaned the binoculars to his daughter, who kept it at her Westshore property where she would take it out on to her top-storey verandah to use and return it inside once done.
“I said ‘Don’t leave them on the balcony, somebody will pinch them,’ and so she was diligently taking them in every night. But somebody accidentally forgot.”
He believes someone would have seen them from the beachside path on Whakariri Ave, installed around a year ago, climbed up the property and run off.
“[The path] makes the visibility and access [to the property] very easy.
“The buggers who stole it need to be aware that my daughter is so beside herself that she just can’t about live with it, because there’s just been such a family connection.”
The size and weight of the binoculars and stand would have made it a difficult task for the thieves to make off with, with Heaps describing them as “extremely heavy”.
“You can pick them up with one hand, then you’ve got to quickly put them down again.”
Heaps has made a police report and has posted across Hawke’s Bay social media groups.
But he’s offering a generous cash reward for the safe return of binoculars, with no questions asked.
“These have huge sentimental value – you cannot buy them, they’re one-off. Please return them, they are so, so part of our family. It’s unbelievable how I acquired them, it’s all part of my history and they’re so much a part of our family that they really, really need to come back.”
Jack Riddell is a multimedia journalist with Hawke’s Bay Today and spent the last 15 years working in radio and media in Auckland, London, Berlin, and Napier. He reports on all stories relevant to residents of the region, along with pieces on art, music, and culture.
