Suffering from an excess of insect repellant, heat and cabin fever, we hired a car for a drive down the coast to the historic township of 1770, so named because Jim Cook stopped off here briefly on his way up the coast on May 24 1770, along with shipmate Joe Banks.
1770 is a sleepy little holiday village of perhaps 100 batches - some of which are still the modest little fribrolite constructions of the 1960s, while others, with the developer's discovery of this coastal gem in the late 1990s are enormous highset luxurious mansions. The place is built around the edge of an estuary, with a shallow sand bank strewn bay, which reminded us of Waikawa, below the Catlins, although the temperature is probably on average 20 degrees higher!
Jim didn't actually do anything at 1770 - he didn't even name the place - that came much later to cash in on his brief stop, however, there is a memorial to mark his stopover. Set in a garden with very nautical wooden bollards, the monument looks remarkably like an outhouse for a Mongolian yurt. Constructed from mortar and riverstones it struggles with the concept of symmetry and is about as in tune with it's purpose and surroundings as Dr Who's Tardis would be if it landed in Antarctica. The bronze plaque records a very succinct statement to the effect that Jim was anchored under the point and that is it. No information displays, and historical notes, no pictures of the Endeavour or pertinent quotes from his log, not even a clear picture of where he anchored. I couldn't help thinking they needed DOC to take them in hand.