An awesome sculpture is to be found unexpectedly in the main street of the small rural village of Kimbolton.
It is the sculpture of an extraordinary eagle, the haast's eagle, and the extraordinary creation of Terry Hawkins, owner at that time of the local garage across the road. It was the winning sculpture in the inaugural Kimbolton Sculpture Festival, 2018.
The Haast's eagle, pouakai
This giant eagle is the largest known to have existed anywhere and endemic to NZ - the South Island particularly. It was NZ's largest land predator. It could possibly weigh up to 17 kg, with a wingspan of 3 metres, and feet and claws as big as a modern-day tiger. Its main prey seems to have been the moa.
It became extinct about 500-600 years ago after the moa died out - probably caused by over-hunting and loss of habitat by early Maori. Cave drawings and tools made of eagle bones, plus traditional stories, show Maori knowledge of such a bird. The first European to describe the eagle was Julius Von Haast after remains were discovered in a former marsh by Frederick Fuller.
References: nzbirdsonline.org.nz/species/haasts-eagle; wikipedia.org/wiki/Haast%27s_Eagle; collections.tepapa.govt.nz/topic/1360
Kimbolton Sculpture Festival
This festival is run annually (at the end of March/start of April) by the Kimbolton Art and Sculpture Trust, part of RuralArtNZ. Its vision involves a celebration of the land, connection to it, and creating sculptures based on rural themes. This is to encourage farmers and others to improve their health and well-being, to combat depression, by getting creative using materials around about them. Community is strengthened as people come together for the festival - to have fun and celebrate their creations. The festival is going from strength to strength - the first in 2018 attracted over 2000 visitors, and the 2019 one well over 3000. The 2020 festival was to be on April 4 - unfortunately cancelled due to Covid-19. The 27th of March 2021 saw an even more successful festival with over 5000 people attending. Sadly the 2022 festival also suffered the Covid fate. The festival did return in 2023. It has now become so successful and is such a big undertaking that it has been decided to hold it every two years rather than annually. There really is some amazing creativity and skill to be admired. There are a number of awards given: an overall winner, People's Choice, Creative Cocky, Local Yokel, Small Sculpture and Youth awards.
Terry Hawkins was 2018’s overall winner and he paid great attention to detail - getting the proportions and representation of his haast's eagle as accurate as possible, and skillfully crafting it out of an amazing variety of old tools and rural equipment.
His wonderful "Wally the Viking" won the Local Yokel Award in 2019. Wally used to be seen keeping an eye on things at the garage door across the street during business hours.
Terry retired in early 2022 and the garage was sold but he is no doubt already planning next year's sculpture!
References: www.facebook.com Kimbolton Sculpture Festival page; www.ruralart.nz
To qualify for this cache:Complete the following and send your answers and photo to the CO. You may then log your find, but please do not include these answers in your log - thank you. The CO will contact you if there are any issues.
1) Name at least four different items that have been re-purposed to form parts of the sculpture.
2) Looking at the information boards behind the sculpture - state what is the suggested time it takes to do the Village Walkway.
3) Take a photo showing the old Garage building, the home of the sculpture's creation, or one of the other buildings across the street. Please do not show the sculpture in your photo. Include in the photo ONE thing that identifies your presence, eg: your GPS, OR a note with your geocaching name, OR your own TB, OR your thumbs up, OR include yourself in the photo, OR something else appropriate.
Virtual Rewards 2.0 - 2019/2020
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between June 4, 2019 and June 4, 2020. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 2.0 on the Geocaching Blog.