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[Traditional Māori music (13 secs)]
The Sugar Loaf Islands, on New Plymouth's southern edge, are a group of five islands which are the remnants of an enormous
volcano that dominated the region over a million years ago. Since then, successive eruptions
have reduced it to a scattering of small islands, rocks, and pinnacles, the most prominent of
which is Paritutū, a rocky peak which stands on the mainland, at a height of over 150 metres.
Other remnants of the giant volcano include the Sugar Loaf Islands of Moturoa and Motumahanga,
also known as Saddleback Island, as well as the rocky outcrops known as Waikaranga or
Seal Rocks and Wharemū or Lion Rock. The Sugar Loaf Islands represent the oldest
volcanic activity on the Taranaki peninsula. They were named in 1770 by Captain James Cook.
He thought the distinctive white coatings of guano, built up by droppings of perching
seabirds, looked like sugar loaf, a conical lump of sugar that Cook used to flavour his
tea. In the past, these islands have been a source of Māori delicacies such as gulls'
eggs. More recently, the first new mineral to be
found in New Zealand, known as taranakite, was discovered here in 1886. Taranakite was
created by the mixture of guano with aluminium-rich rock, which makes up the islands. But since
the Sugar Loaf Islands became a protected Marine Park in 1991, mining has been prohibited
and, with the exception of Paritutū, no landing is allowed.
Paritutū is easily accessible as it lies on the coast on the outskirts of New Plymouth.
A challenging 10-minute scramble up a rocky staircase will get you to the summit. Paritutū
used to be a little taller, but the summit was flattened by Māori in earlier times to
make a level site for dwellings and kumara pits. From the summit of Paritutū you can
see Taranaki's volcanic arc -- a curving a series of old volcanoes gradually decreasing
in size. Closest to Paritutu lies the Kaitake Range,
which rises behind the coastal town of Oakura. Its tallest peak, Pāhuta, is 684 metres high.
It is the remnant of a much larger volcano that appeared about half a million years ago.
At one stage Pāhuta may have been higher than Mount Taranaki, but eruptions and erosion
over the years have reduced it. The same process has also shaped the adjacent
Poukai Range, which stands between Mount Taranaki and the Kaitake Range. Poukai is thought to
have emerged about a quarter of a million years ago. Because it is younger, and has
had fewer eruptions and less erosion, it is double the height of the Kaitake peak Pāhuta.
Mount Taranaki, which last erupted around 1755, is the most recent of this line of volcanoes.
Successive lava eruptions have gradually built up its symmetrical cone since it appeared
about 100,000 years ago. The Sugar Loaf Islands are scattered over
an area of 8 square kilometres, and are popular with marine mammals, including fur seals who
swim out there during the winter, humpback whales who pass through the islands as they
migrate north to their tropical breeding grounds, and dolphins who frequent these waters in
the early summer months.