That Was The Week That Was!

Spectacle, pageantry and parade were the order of the week in which Gisborne became the focus of the whole country on the occasion of the Cook Bicentenary Celebrations. Two hundred years ago, Captain James Cook first set foot on New Zealand soil where the city now stands. Two hundred years later, Vampire jets screamed over the place where a sailing vessel once moved slowly in to drop anchor. All manner of organisations participated in the celebrations during Cook Week, all of them holding appropriate functions to mark the bicentenary.

Excitement mounted with the representative ships of five navies (the Royal, Australian, Canadian, United States and New Zealand) putting in their appearances, and reached higher tones on October 9 when the official celebrations were observed. These were a civic welcome at Endeavour Park (including a parade of the Queen's Colour by the Royal Guard, a Royal 21 gun salute, and a fly-past by the R.N.Z.A.F.); an hour-long parade of floats along Gladstone Road; a government function at Rugby Park in the afternoon; and, in the evening, the Beating of the Retreat performed by the Combined Bands and Corps of Drums which was followed by the most spectacular display of fireworks yet seen in this country.

Official guests present in Gisborne for the celebrations included the Governor-General, Sir Arthur Porritt, and Lady Porritt, the Prime Minister, Rt. Hon Keith Holyoake, and Mrs Holyoake, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Norman Kirk, and Mrs Kirk, Mr H. T. A. Reedy, and the Mayor and Mayoress of Gisborne, Mr and Mrs Harry Barker. Also on the guest list were Army, Navy and Air Force personnel, as well as ambassadors of other countries and local dignitaries.

The celebrations ended with a Community Act of Worship on Sunday, October 12. This included a re-enactment of the coming of the first missionaries to Poverty Bay.