Cook’s Cove and the walkway which shares its name are called after Captain James Cook, who visited Tolaga Bay on his circumnavigation of New Zealand in 1769. When Cook arrived on the Endeavour and chose this bay to anchor, the area was home to an estimated 1,200 Maori.

The destination of the walk, a sheltered inlet at the southern end of Tolaga Bay is a beautiful and serene spot and I was glad to learn that the bay wasn’t the scene of a violent encounter between Maori and these unexpected British intruders. On the contrary – the crew seemed fascinated by a country “agreeable beyond description” as was the local iwi by the goods they traded with the crew.

The 2.5-hour return walk follows a well-marked track across farmland and through native bush to a lookout on the clifftop with panoramic views of the coastline and Cook’s Cove itself. The trail then descends through bush onto the coastal flats and passes by ‘The Hole in the Wall’.

I stood there quite fascinated by this beautifully sculpted rock arch through which the ocean sparkled. Yet my fascination was less with the rock formation itself than the fact that James Cook and Joseph Banks, the famous botanist onboard the Endeavour, had gazed in awe at the exact same spot 250 years earlier.