GANNETS OF
CAPE KIDNAPPERS

"More fun than you ever imagined" is the slogan of Gannet Beach Adventures, the company which operates a tractor and trailer tour along the beach to the world's largest mainland gannet colony at Cape Kidnappers, Hawke's Bay. It's advertised as a 4-hour tour which includes a 90-minute break in which to walk (25 minutes uphill) to view these distinctive birds in their natural habitat. The remainder of the time (approximately 75 minutes each way) you are on board the trailer being towed by a rather old-style tractor.

If we expected the ride to be long and tedious, quite simply it wasn't! It was a whale of a lot of fun. On the day we rode (January 20th, 2003), three tractors - towing trailers - set out in convoy, each with approximately 35 passengers on board. The drivers were "good Kiwi blokes" for whom the occasional detour into the sea (when there was no good reason to other than to see their cargo striving to not get wet) simply added to the "excitement" of the ride.

We stopped once or twice to view the cliffs towering up from the beach and hear (from our knowledgable guides) how the clearly visible layers in the cliff face had been formed over time and how the region had been altered by movement in the earth's plates (i.e. earthquakes). All very interesting stuff, even for kids, like observing seashells in the rock face 20 metres up.

The gannets themselves are found in separate locations, some at the water's edge, others in their thousands on a plateau at the top of a cliff which is where you arrive after the "moderate" uphill walk. We learnt a certain amount of interesting information about them (which I won't elaborate on here), but one observation made by some was how ungainly they were at landing after a flight. More often than not it looked distinctly like a "crash landing". Unfortunately I didn't manage to photograph such a landing, but took plenty of other shots of the birds themselves.

In summary, the ride itself is as much an "experience" as seeing the actual gannets. I'd imagine that most who paid their $25 ($US13.50 or £8.25) for this half-day excursion would come away agreeing that it was indeed more fun than they'd ever imagined. We certainly did. It's an outing we'd definitely recommend.