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Singing 'Their' Song

'These Hills Where the Hawk Flies Lonely' is the first line of a hymn written about Kaikoura by well-known Dunedin composer Colin Gibson.

The song was sung at the 125th anniversary of St Paul's Presbyterian church in Kaikoura. Celebrations also included Scottish dancing and piping, the dedication of a wall banner depicting all the previous ministers at the church, and the planting of a kowhai tree by a descendent of the first minister Reverend McAra.

So enthusiastically has the congregation adopted and performed the hymn, that they have been recorded by the Sunday morning television programme 'Praise Be' and broadcast more than once on national television.

The hymn was also included in a cantata called 'The Spirit Within' which was commissioned as a millennium project by St John's-in-the-City in Wellington, and first presented at that church at Pentecost in June 2000.

Various elements of the natural environment of Kaikoura, such as the whales and the hills, are noted in the song, says Peter Baillie, a member of the St John's-in-the-City who has sung it numerous times. "It's an evocation of things we need to protect and care for, and the kinds of things where we see God working in the contemporary world."

St John's-in-the-City organist was involved with the original installation of St Paul's organ in 1990, and in November 2000 a group from St John's took part in the rededication celebrations of the renovated organ. It was then that the Kaikoura parishioners first heard the Kaikoura hymn.