Poverty Bay to East Cape.

Poverty Bay (Turanga)

Is the first anchorage north of Hawke’s Bay being eight leagues from Table Cape; the bay is five miles from head to head, and four miles in depth. The entrance will be known by the heads being the first white projections from the land north of Table Cape; the south (or Young Nick’s) head is 520 feet high, and has within it, anchorage off the Wero Wero River, but it is advisable to keep more than half a-mile from it as within this the ground is very foul changing from eight fathoms to nine feet, the bottom, however, is not rock, but apparently composed of vast fragments of the pipe clay cliff, which has from time to time slipped away. (A very common occurrence on this part of the Coast, upon which the sea is rapidly advancing, and which is so liable to smart shocks of earthquake.)

The North Head (Tua-hini) bears N.E. from Young Nick’s Head; it also has foul rocky ground, extending to the S.E. for two miles, at this distance we shoaled suddenly from sixteen to eight fathoms.

On the north side of the bay is what appears an island (Tua Motu), but it is joined to the main at low water, off this a reef extends two cables to the southward, between this peninsula and Turanga-nui River, there are rocks half-a-mile from the shore, the outer ones of which are covered or a-wash at low water.

With the exception of the above, the bay is free from dangers, and a vessel can anchor according to circumstances, but she should not remain if there is an appearance of a breeze from the S.E., for it freshens suddenly and vessels have been lost by waiting too long. In all westerly winds, and in ordinary N.E. sea breezes there is shelter. The bottom is sand and the soundings decrease gradually from twelve fathoms across the entrance to five fathoms, half a mile from the beach.

The flood outside sets to the northward, ebb to the southward, and their influence extends ten miles from the shore. Within the bay the tide is scarcely perceptible. At Wero Wero the high water at full and change is 6h. 5m. and the rise and fall six feet.

There are three small rivers in this bay -- the Turanganui, the Kopututea, and the Wero Wero. The former is celebrated for being the first spot where Cook landed in New Zealand, and from the untoward circumstances attending it, and their hopeless attempts to obtain provisions, he named the bay Poverty.

The Turanganui has about a fathom at the entrance at low water, coasting schooners may cross the bar at high water, when the channel within is a cable broad. Half a mile above the river branches off to the N.W. and N.N.E. (at the fork there is ten feet at high water) the former branch being the largest. This river terminates a sandy beach of eight miles from the south head.

The Kopututea has about the same water at the bar as Turanganui, but is less easy to define, it is a much larger river than the latter, and is a fine sheet of water when the tide is in, it flows through one of the richest valleys in New Zealand, where about 30,000 acres of level land and excellent soil is very partially cultivated, it affords pasturage to a great extent, being clothed with natural grass. The Church Mission Station is on the west bank three miles from the river’s mouth.

The Wero Wero is only fit for boats, it is just within Young Nick’s Head, and runs for a mile parallel to the beach (stretching through the Kopututea plain), at high water a branch of it is connected, near the mouth, with the Kopututea River.

Ariel Rocks.

Ten miles E. ¼ N. from Tua-hini Point (North Head of Poverty Bay) are the Ariel Rocks, it is a very dangerous patch only breaking in heavy seas. At low water spring there are two fathoms on it, it extends north and south, and the dangerous portion is not half a mile in length, we found it very steep to shoaling at one cast from twenty-three to eight and six fathoms when within half a cable of the shoalest portion. There are thirty-one fathoms between it and the shore, green mud, and twenty fathoms one mile north, from whence it shoals more gradually than from the other sides.

Its vicinity may be known, the bottom being coarse gravel, and stones within a radius of two miles. If the soundings exceed thirty-five fathoms you are outside.

The following bearings give the position of the Ariel:

• Cape Gable (a very conspicuous white cliff) N. 15° W. 12 miles.
• Tua-hini, (North Head of Poverty Bay) S. 84° W. 10 miles.
• False Gable (the nearest point of land) N. 73° W. 8½ miles.

The distance from the shore will render clearing marks available only in very clear weather. Tua Motu (in Poverty Bay) is shut in when north of it, when it just opens like an island you are half a mile north of the rocks. Again the top of the White Gable is nearly on a level with the land behind it.

A vessel called the Martha struck on these rocks and injured her keel, about fifteen years ago. The Pandora visited them, and during three days could not distinguish them until close to their position, and though the wind during the greater part of that time blew very fresh from the N.E., yet there was no break, but after a S.E. gale they were seen to break heavily from the shore.