Young Nick's Head

Young Nick's Head
Te Kuri o Pāoa
Young Nick's Head from Kaiti Beach
Location	Poverty Bay, New Zealand
Coordinates	38°45′25″S 177°57′49″E / 38.7570°S 177.9636°E / -38.7570; 177.9636Coordinates: 38°45′25″S 177°57′49″E / 38.7570°S 177.9636°E / -38.7570; 177.9636

Young Nick's Head is a headland at the southern end of Poverty Bay in New Zealand's North Island. It is commonly associated with the discovery of New Zealand by Captain Cook. The area is also cited as the landing place of the Horouta and Te Ikaroa-a-Rauru waka which carried Māori settlers to the region around 1350 AD. In Māori, the promontory is named Te Kuri o Pāoa.

Young Nick's Head was the first land sighted by the crew of Captain James Cook's ship, Endeavour on Friday 6 October, 1769. Cook promised a reward to the first crewman to sight land and this reward was delivered to 12-year-old Nicholas Young, assistant to the ship's surgeon, in the form of two gallons of rum and the name of the headland.

Prior to Cook's arrival, the headland was known to Māori as Te Kuri o Pāoa, which translates to "The Dog of Pāoa".Māori legends recount that Pāoa lost his dog in the Poverty Bay area and the dog is still there waiting for his master to return. It is said if you look towards the white cliffs at dawn they resemble the outline of a dog in a crouching position.

Nick’s Head Station consists of the headland and its surrounding coastal, wetland and farming areas. The 661 hectare property is currently owned by New York financier John Griffin. After acquiring the property in 2002, Griffin engaged in a long-term plan to restore the area’s vegetation and wildlife. Across the station over 600,000 trees were planted, 26 hectares of wetlands were restored, and a 2-metre-high predator-proof fence was constructed as native species such as Tuatara, Blue Penguin and Weta were reintroduced. In 2005 Ecoworks, an ecological restoration company in Gisborne, successfully used solar-powered, acoustic-attraction methods and artificial burrows to establish breeding colonies of six pelagic seabird species at Young Nick's Head which had previously been severely affected by human colonisation and the introduction of new predators.