To the mainland

The first Pākehā to set eyes on the Mt Arthur tableland, in 1863, was Thomas Salisbury, brother of John Salisbury, the great-great-grandfather of Ray Salisbury, author and photographer of the new book Tableland. So you’d forgive Ray for getting personal.

But come to that, everything about the tableland seems personal, and maybe it’s the limestone. Maybe Auden was right when he suggested that limestone landscapes, with all their nooks and crannies, pancake layers, dripping accretions, flutings, caves and water gurgling underground, were the ones most suited to humanity’s well-being.

Evidence of transitional Māori encampments exists on the Motueka River near Pokororo, but there’s no archaeological evidence of Māori occupation on the tableland. And for Pākehā at least, the tableland started off with an offer of benign good fortune. Thomas noted a plateau “eight miles long by six wide”. He saw gold in some of the