isborne, the region's biggest city, is pleasantly sited where the Waimata and Taruheru Rivers join to form the Turanganui River and with more than 2200 hours of sunshine annually has one of the country's best climates. The Botanical Gardens, adjoining the Taruheru River, off Roebuck and Aberdeen Roads, has some fine specimen trees and an aviary which includes weka.

Outside the city, an easy drive of some 35 kilometres along the Rere-Ngatapa Road brings you to the superb, exotic tree collection at Eastwardhill Arboretum. Here, one can find the life's work of a local farmer, William Douglas Cook. Returning from service in Europe after the First World War, Cook decided to create a replica of the English stately gardens he, had admired while overseas. He spent his life’s savings planting nearly half of his 130-hectare farm in trees, almost all imported from the Northern Hemisphere, and today Eastwardhill has the best collection of this type of tree in the country. Many of the trees growing at Eastwardhill Arboretum are now rare in their native lands and seed has recently been re-exported to Britain.

Autumn is the time when the many deciduous trees are at their finest; in spring, the thousands of daffodils are in bloom and the magnolias and rhododendrons are in full flower. Rather surprisingly, the flowers do not seem to attract many of our native birds. There are a few tul here, together with kereru, warblers and fantails, but for the most part the birds, like the trees, are exotics.

Before you visit, ring and check that Eastwardhill will be open. It is definitely too big for a flying visit, so pack a picnic lunch and make a day of it.

On the way back to Gisborne keep a sharp lookout for weka, as this part of Poverty Bay is one of the few places in the North Island where this bold, brassy and inquisitive bird still occurs. Weka nests are built under logs or rock overhangs and often also around outbuildings, such as the maize cribs which are a feature of the Gisborne area. Although flightless, the weka is among the best suited of our native birds to withstand the onslaught of introduced predators, making short work of rats, mice and, occasionally, even stoats and weasels. However, disease, presumed to have been spread by introduced poultry, was almost the weka’s undoing. It disappeared from most of the country between 1916 and 1930, but fortunately small remnant populations survived both here and in Northland, and weka trapped locally are now being used to replenish parts of their former range. These transfers, however, have not always been to the wekas' liking. A bird captured from Gisborne and released in Hawke's Bay promptly walked the 130 kilometres home, and some South Island birds, after being liberated on Maud Island in the Marlborough Sounds, swam almost a kilometre back to the mainland.

When camping in areas where weka are found, make sure that your goods and chattels are secure as weka like kea, are no respecters of either possessions or privacy - a fact the early bushmen and explorers soon found out. I am still a little nonplused as to what possible use a weka could have had for a rather expensive camera filter it souvenired from me one day when I was camped in this locality.

Lake Repongaere, five kilometres north of Patutahi and only about 20 minutes' drive from Gisborne, is a good place for viewing waterfowl. At certain times of the year the lake is home to thousands of waterbirds, including grey and paradise ducks, black swans, mallard, shoveler and grey teal. And a remarkable phenomenon which occurs annually in many parts of New Zealand can be witnessed here. About a week before the shooting season starts, ducks and swans flock into sanctuaries and other protected waters. Some attribute this to the birds' instinct for self-preservation, but I suspect some extra-keen shooters may be using last year's calendars.