Come Not Between the Dragon and his Wrath. 

 

After a year shy of a few days, Sidney Weetman, a Government Surveyor, left his surveying work on Great Barrier Island on 11^th June, 1886. Ever-curious, he had noted such things as the finding of some bones at ‘Owena’ (Awana) that turned out to be those of a small species of Moa, but, as to how they got there, there was no obvious evidence. Weetman does not describe it, other than to mention it happened, but, a day before his departure from the island he had heard a distinctive sound, as did others around him that day. Three years later, as he gave a prepared talk to the Auckland Institute, he commented he had ‘heard that the late Theophilus Heale, who at different times had lived there, (on the Barrier) and had travelled over every portion of it, was of the opinion that in the neighbourhood of the Black Rocks, situate at the head of the Kaitoke Stream, there are remains of terraces similar in formation to the far-famed Pink and White of Rotomahana, only on a far grander scale…’ but without sufficient time and expertise, he was unable to determine the site. 

‘..suddenly there was a terrific roar….to my intense amazement I saw an immense column of fire miles in height rushing up heavenward with a frightful roar…from 3-400 yards in width…of even width from its base to the very top….huge streaks of yellow, red, black and grey ran straight up the column. The whole district was ..lit up with a blood-red light..it was possible to read a paper…many hundreds of hotsprings ..around us..were..affected..and boiled furiously…The stupendous combined roar from these eight separate craters..’ (for more explosive columns roared upward as the night progressed), ‘..was heard in Auckland 130 miles away (just over 200km)..and mistaken by some for heavy man-of-war guns…’

‘…a troop of natives passed me at the double, puffing and blowing and looking as if they could not run much further. They had run from Whakarewarewa, 2 miles away’ They had a tale of terror. By the time of the last column of fire.. ‘all the preceeding ones were hidden from view by a dense black cloud..(which) ..spread out like a huge mushroom over the whole country and enveloped everything in an intense darkness as it got nearer and nearer to us.’ Many alternations of darkness punctuated by awesome electric displays were eventually followed by.. ‘..suddenly the dense black mass is alive with millions of small bright blue stars away up as far as the eye can see, they are whirling through space …at a tremendous speed…The whole immense cloud is blueified by the brightness of their blue lights…what an indescribable sight..thousands of the lower ones were falling around..I frequently jumped away..I gained confidence as to their size and weight and held out my hand to meet the next one falling near me…something touched my hand, it was cold and no heavier than a flake of snow, but I saw nothing…when daylight came..upon visiting the lake..thousands of small dark glass balls were floating on the water…about the size of a tennis ball..perfectly round and smooth, with one small hole ..a little thicker than a soap bubble.. none were to be found in a day or two. They were too fragile..’         

            Dansey also describes an abortive night escape through falling debris and past spouting hotpools with his wife, children and a baby suffocating when fine grit blew across them. They all survived but ‘from the native settlements near the foot of Tarawera mountain not a soul escaped.’

            This is but a very brief and partial precis of Dansey’s fascinating account of the Tarawera eruption, and very unfortunately, the volcano’s destruction of the pink and white terraces was not saved by the existence of Theophilus Heale’s even more spectacular ones here.    

 

Don Armitage   ©

(First published in ‘The Island Breeze’ Sept 2005)