Description:
Situated on the waterfront, on city side of the Turanganui River mouth at the end of Waikanae Park, Gisborne.
The bronze statue is slightly over probably life size, it stands on a column which appears to stem from half a globe, on the flat face of which is the inscription below. The whole stands on a circular flat feature with compass points.
There is another bronze cast of this statue outside the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England.
History:
Placed on the Waterfront in 1994.
The sculptor was Antony Stones, who sculpted the original in his workshops in Oxfordshire, England for New Zealand’s Hall of Discovery exhibit at Expo ’92 at Seville in Spain. This copy was commissioned and paid for by Gisborne District Council.
Antony Stones was born in 1934 in the UK later emigrating to New Zealand, he was formerly Head of Design at NZ Television before moving to England as a full time sculptor, he died in 2016 aged 82.
Inscription:
On the front of the base:
A fine seaman, an outstanding captain and an honest man Captain Cook was one of the last of the great
explorer navigators and the first scientific expedition leaders. After his three global voyages
of 1768-71, 1772-75 and 1776-79 the map of the world was substantially complete.
Here on the 9th and 10th of October, 1769, Cook walked with men from HM Bark Endeavour seeking
fresh food and water. Nearby on the river rock Toka-a-Taiau, Maori chief and English greeted
one another. When traditional challenges were misunderstood Maori were killed,
the ship sailed without provisions and thus Poverty Bay received its name.
From here, the Endeavour circumnavigated New Zealand
and Cook plotted the first map of this country.
This meeting of the two peoples, marked the beginning of the
New Zealand nation.
Latitude/Longitude: -38.6623, 178.0177
References:
Cook’s Log, page 839, vol.15, no.2 (1992)
Cook’s Log, page 1091, vol.17, no.4 (1994)
Cook’s Log, page 1181, vol.18, no.3 (1995)
Cook’s Log, page 18, vol.29, no.4 (2006)
Cook’s Log, page 30, vol.40, no.1 (2017)