BILLY MACTOLD
There’s much more to historic ties between Tasmania and New Zealand than just those in my recent writing (Tough roads ahead and the Old Bear’s contribution in reply to that (Beatties and the beauty). I add another unusual item, gleaned from the pages of New Zealand Geographic, an article with the focus on the far north-west North Island harbour of Hokianga, and journalist Kennedy Warne’s voyage of discovery around its waters in a kayak.
At one point in his paddling adventure he comes ashore from a bay at the harbour entrance near a place called Omapere and meets Lloyd Walker, a retired geography teacher, antiquarian, rockhound and beachcomber (plus being a man any Tasmanian Green would love – he’s planted 9,000 native trees around his home).
Journalist and inveterate collector sit down at a table covered with bits scavenged by Walker on his beach ramblings. Walker hands Warne a piece of bright orange brick, its edges tumbled smooth by tidal flows over many decades.
“Made by Hobart convicts and brought here as ship’s ballast. You find them everywhere,” says Walker. They move on in their conversation and there’s nothing more about our transported convict bricks. But it set me wondering where else in the Land of the Long White Cloud they finished up (indeed, where else in the world). Seems scope here for a bit of craft creativity – polish the remnant brick bits, mount them, and export (repatriate?) them back to Tassie.
There’s another bit of trans-Tasman interest for us in Hokianga, one that kayaking journo Warne no doubt appreciated.
Tasmanians are familiar with single-handed attempts to conquer the crossing of the rough and tough Tasman Sea. And it was from Hokianga in 1977 that an intrepid paddler, Colin Quincey, set out in a plywood boat to tackle the Tasman. That April 9, after rowing for 63 days and seven hours, he hauled his boat ashore on Marcus Beach in Queensland, becoming the first person to cross those waters under his own power. It was a remarkable achievement and significant in that in the three decades since nobody else has completed this solo crossing.
Now his son Shaun is also going to have a go, but his will be a bid to make the first solo crossing from Australia to New Zealand. A 7.3-metre plywood, fibreglass and Kevlar rowing boat (called Tasman Trespasser 2) has been built for him in Auckland, at the yard of John Salthouse – the man responsible for building Colin Quincey’s boat, the first Tasman Trespasser.
Shaun, 24, intends setting out from Sydney harbour waters early in November and reckons the journey will take around two months, depending on the conditions he encounters, with the coast of the North Island’s Taranaki province his intended landfall. Oarsome!
See Shaun’s website www.tasmantrespasser,com
