Eric Valentine's Praise Photography Blog: The most incredible gannet colonies of Cape Kidnappers, Napier, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand

Meg and I enjoyed five days of travel last week with friends with whom we had spent time in the Peace Corps. Paul and Betty have lived in Australia for quite a time, and Mary is from northern California. The two years in Tonga in 1968/69 were seminal experiences for us. Even though we have not seen each other for years--raising families and developing professionally--we quickly shed the distances and enthusiastically shared many, many conversations.

We stayed in Napier, a remarkable town that rebuilt after devastating earthquake in 1931 in the art deco style of those times. From Napier we went to Cape Kidnappers, so named after Captain Cook's Tahitian translator was kidnapped by Maoris when Cook sailed into the northern portion of Hawkes Bay in 1769.

Besides spectacular geology, Cape Kidnappers holds the only gannet colony in the world where you can get within ten feet of these magnificent birds. They live between 25 to 40 years, once they survive "childhood." We watched as the youngsters flapped their wings in the gusting winds, wondering how surprised they would be to be suddenly airborne, navigating the tricky winds and figuring out to dive for fish to feed themselves instead of waiting for food to come out of their parents throats.

At about sixteen weeks, they fly off to Australia, a distance of twenty five hundred miles. After a couple of years there, like many human Kiwis who cross the sea, they return to New Zealand to stay. The colony we visited overlooks Hawke's Bay. Thousands of acres of farmland were purchased and turned into a world ranked golf course. The owners have also transformed the land into a nature preserve, removing and fencing out the many species of introduced mammals that have decimated the bird populations. Numbers have steadily increased to 8,000 pairs, making Cape Kidnappers the largest and most accessible mainland population in the world.

If you do come to New Zealand, Napier should definitely be a place to visit! Oh, and I forgot to mention that some of the best New Zealand wines come from the Napier, Hawke's Bay region.