Sun 17 Feb - Petone & Eastbourne

Petone - Henkel met some unexpected friends just days before his disappearance. Details are sketchy but there appears to have been some confusion over a bundle of flutes which he had sold some months earlier in the Hauraki region. Some disturbance was recorded as the musicians were seen being flung off the peer (pictured below) into the clear waters of mouth of the great fish.





















Interestingly, this event coincided with the arrival of Rev Samual Marsden (see interpretive painting below by G. Crewdson with his cat-o-nine-tails)


















And on to Eastbourne - where Henkel and his men were last seeing amoungst the small group of Whalers who were living there. His diappearance remains a mystery, it is possible that some of the men boarded the whaling ship Metabolan (which sunk off the coast of Kaikura some weeks later), there was also records of an attempted journey around the Pencarow heads towards the Wairarapa. The fact that eyewitness accounts do not match up leads to the suspicion that Henkel and his men were being persued and did not wish to be found.




































A ceremonial send off was made by the musicians on Sun 17 Feb 2008, parading into the sea where a portion of his favourite walking stick was released into the harbour.