When Joseph Banks visited Queen Charlotte Sound during Captain Cook’s first voyage there, he wrote of the being woken by the sound of birds singing from ashore.

“Their numbers were certainly very great. They seemed to strain their throats with emulation, and made, perhaps, the most melodious wild music I have ever heard, almost imitating small bells, but with the most tunable silver imaginable.”

There’s a great walk around the island to the gun emplacement on the Oruawairua Track.