Mercury and Maia

Mercury Navigators

Whitianga has a long history of connections with marine navigators, from Kupe to Cook to Tupaia.

Capt. James Cook claimed New Zealand for the British Crown on 15th November 1769 in the Bay he named Mercury Bay (Te Whanganui-a-Hei) where he observed the Transit of Mercury on 9th November. 

Whitianga

The town and land surrounding the Bay has locations and street names reflecting the early explorers and places where they originated.

The full name of the town is Te Whitianga-o-Kupe (or the place where Kupe crossed over). Kupe arrived in Aotearoa in the 10th Century on the canoe Matahourua and named the headland at the northern end of Buffalo Beach and stream which flowed directly out into the Bay Taputapuatea, after the the old temple at Opoa on Ra'iatea, Society Islands. There is a place on Ra'iatea called Hitia'a, in Te Reo this is Whitianga.

In Whitianga there is Kupe Drive, Cook Drive, linked by Whitby Avenue; in Cooks Beach there is Captain Cook Road, Hicks Place, Charles Green Drive, Endeavour Place, Hardy Place, Banks Street and Resolution Rise.

Whitianga has recently been contemplating a Theme for the town and surrounding area and a Navigators Theme has been proposed to reflect the seafaring history of the location.  This and succeeding blogs will build the connections and background for the proposal and follow the development and uptake of the ideas.

The Objectives of the Theme are to:

to create a new focus of activity and enterprise complementing those already existing in the community

to create a major focus on the arts and science in all facets of navigation

to involve everyone who uses navigation every day

to involve all cultures in the area

to use existing geography in the town to create time-line pathways of navigation along the parallel Drives of Cook and Kupe and connected by Whitby Avenue,
to use existing geography in Ferry Landing, Shakespeare’s Cliff and Cook’s Beach

to establish a time-line of Cook’s Voyages along the streets of Cook's Beach

to establish a point of sale for navigation publications and hardware

to establish points of demonstration and use of maritime, aeronautical, terrestrial and celestial navigation

to establish a community activity in national navigation competitions

to establish links to other communities involved in navigation

to establish a navigation centre for tourism with displays of European and Polynesian navigation and viewing theatre

to support education programmes for personal navigation in life

to support links to the Health Navigator groups

http://www.ngatihei.iwi.nz/history.html accessed 27th May 2012
Edwards, Philip (2003) James Cook, The Journals. Prepared from the original manuscript by J.C.Beaglehole for the Hakluyt Society, 1955-67. London, Penguin Books