By Sorrel Hoskin

Lieutenant James Cook stood on the deck of the Endeavour and surveyed the scene before him. A group of rocks huddled together just off the coast of a magnificent stand of forest. Rising majestically above the trees was a cone shaped mountain, a sprinkling of snow on its peak, a small cloud curling protectively around it's flanks.

The rocks reminded him of the lumps of sugar he used to stir into his tea - so they became the Sugar Loaf Islands.

The mountain he named Egmont in honour of the Earl of Egmont, the first Lord of the Admiralty who had encouraged Cook's expeditions.

It was 12 January 1770 and Cook was on his first exploratory journey around New Zealand. He had first sighted land off Poverty Bay the year before and had sailed around the northern island before sighting a peak in the distance.

"A very high mountain and in appearance greatly resembling the peak of Teneriffe" he wrote in his diary.

 "It seems to have a large base and a rise with a gradual ascent and is surrounded by flat country of pleasant appearance, being clothed with wood and the shore around it forms a large cape which I have named Cape Egmont."

Abel Tasman had discovered New Zealand 127 years before Cook, but left in disgust at what he saw as a lack of resources. Tasman had sailed around Cape Egmont, but the mountain had hidden beneath a blanket of cloud, and he had sailed away non the wiser that a mountain was slumbering beneath.

But the cone-shaped mountain had been discovered long before the Europeans arrived on the scene. Local Maori named the mountain Taranaki after Rua Taranaki, thought to have been the first Maori to climb the mountain. It was another 69 years before a European was to achieve the same feat.