232 x 186 mm. A view of Whitianga, with a jetty in the foreground leading to houses, the 'Whitiangi Hotel' and the 'Whitiangi Music Hall'. The photograph also has several people posing for the camera. Mercury Bay is a large inlet on the east coast of Coromandel Peninsula on the North Island. Whitianga is situated at a narrow strait between Mercury Bay and Whitianga Harbour, an inland extension of the Bay. It was east of Whitianga, at Cook's Beach, that Cook observed the transit of Mercury (and so named the bay) on November 9, 1769.