Mine Bay Rock Carvings

Why it matters

The carving is of Ngātoroirangi — the tohunga of the Te Arawa canoe, and the ancestor from whom Ngāti Tūwharetoa descend. He is the figure at the centre of this whole landscape: the one who climbed Tongariro, was caught by the cold, and called to his sisters for the fire that burned its way underground from the coast and left the geothermal line the region still sits on. The face on the cliff looks out across water his descendants still hold. Around him are smaller carvings of tupuna — ancestors — and kaitiaki, guardians, each of them significant to the local iwi.

The man who cut them is Matahi Whakataka-Brightwell, born in Masterton in 1952. His grandmother, Te Huatahi Susie Gilbert, asked him to carve a likeness of Ngātoroirangi, and the request came with a practical problem: he could not find a tōtara tree big enough to do it properly. So he did not carve wood. He carved the cliff instead. Work ran from 1976 to 1980, four summers, with a team of four others alongside him, reached each day by boat. The design was set out on the rock with chalk, string lines and spray paint and then cut by hand, and the regional tourism organisation's account of the working conditions is worth repeating exactly: the carvers had "nothing but safety goggles and a pair of speedos."

It was not universally welcomed. A local councillor objected that outsiders should not be cutting into the rock — and Brightwell's response is the detail that stays with you. He left the eyes of the figure blank. An unfinished gaze, in answer to an objection about belonging. The work was formally blessed in November 2016, thirty-six years after it was finished, in recognition of what it had come to mean to the district and the iwi.

So the honest description is not ancient rock art. It is a monumental modern sculpture, made by a young carver on his grandmother's instruction, in a medium chosen because the right tree could not be found, carrying an argument about who has standing to make marks on a place — visible, still, in a pair of empty eyes.

What it's like

The approach does most of the work. Mine Bay is well down the western shore and the boat takes its time getting there; the town shrinks, the far mountains come up, and for half an hour there is nothing to look at but water and cliff. Then the skipper slows, turns in, and the face is simply there — high up on the rock, much larger than the photographs suggest, and oriented so that it is looking past you rather than at you.

Scale is the thing that does not survive reproduction. Fourteen metres is the height of a four-storey building, and because there is nothing beside it for comparison except the cliff and the water, the eye keeps failing to size it until another boat comes into frame and the figure suddenly triples. The stone is pale and the cutting is deep, so on a bright morning the whole face is a composition of hard shadow that shifts as the boat moves.

From a kayak it is different again, and better. You are at water level, the cliff goes up from just beyond your hands, and the carving is above you rather than across from you — the angle it was cut to be seen from. It is also, at that range, unmistakably handmade: you can see where the tool went.

How to visit

Boats leave from Taupō Boat Harbour, at the mouth of the Waikato in the middle of town. Three ways go out: scenic cruises, which are the comfortable option and run to a timetable; sailing trips, which take longer and are the pleasanter passage if the wind cooperates; and kayak tours, which are the closest and the most physical.

Kayaking is the one to choose if you are able. It is a genuine paddle rather than a gentle potter, and it puts you at the foot of the cliff at the angle the carving was cut for. Guided trips are the sensible form — the lake makes its own weather and the crossing is exposed.

Go in the morning. This is the single practical decision that matters. Lake Taupō is reliably calm early and reliably choppier by mid-afternoon, and a chop turns a good half-day into an unpleasant one, particularly under paddle. Cruise operators are less troubled by it than kayakers, but nobody enjoys the return leg into a headwind.

Allow half a day. The carvings themselves take a few minutes to look at and the rest is passage. Trips are typically built around a couple of hours on the water; the sailing options run longer.

Making the most of it

Learn the story before you go, not after. This is a rare case where five minutes of background changes the object in front of you. Arriving thinking you are about to see something ancient produces mild disappointment; arriving knowing it is 1976–1980, a grandmother's request and a young man who could not find a big enough tree produces something much better. The boat commentary will tell you, but it will tell you while you are looking, which is too late.

Take the kayak if the morning is calm and you are fit. The difference between viewing from a deck and viewing from the waterline is the difference between seeing a photograph of the right thing and seeing the thing.

Sit on the correct side. On a cruise, the carvings come up on one beam and everybody moves at once. Ask the crew which side as you board and place yourself there early.

Make it the lake day. The trip out is a long look at the lake from the middle of it, which is worth having in its own right. Pair it with a swim off the town beach rather than with another attraction up the road — the geothermal sites keep, and the calm morning does not.

Nearby

Everything else in the cluster is on land, north of town, and none of it needs a boat. Huka Falls is five minutes from the middle of Taupō, and Craters of the Moon five minutes beyond it — the pair make a good afternoon after a morning on the water.

Taupō is where the boats leave from and where you will be sleeping. An hour and a quarter south, the Tongariro Alpine Crossing crosses the volcanoes at the far end of the lake — the same landscape the figure on the cliff is turned towards.