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| Rawene on the Hokianga Harbour |
The Hokianga Harbour is known
in Māori as Te Hokianga Kupe A Nui: the great leaving (or returning place) of
Kupe. Kupe was the legendary Polynesian
voyager who first discovered Aotearoa New Zealand. It was around 925 AD that the Matahourua canoe
arrived in the Hokianga, where Kupe and his crew settled for a while. Kupe eventually left the harbour and returned
to Hawaiki, but his grandson, Nukutawhiti, returned—following Kupe's sailing
instructions. Later European
missionaries, traders and settlers arrived in the Hokianga and for a while it
was a busy place with shipping and logging industries. Nowadays the Hokianga is a sleepy place, less
visited than popular tourist areas like the Bay of Islands but with a charm of
its own.
We began our journey to the Hokianga at Kaitaia, where we
parked Tangaroa at the RSA, close to
the town centre. We were keen to visit
the Te Ahu Centre, which is home to the town's i-SITE, museum, library and art
gallery. The doors into the atrium were
etched with the figures of a Māori and Pakehā greeting each other with the
hongi—a touching of noses and foreheads where the breath of life is
exchanged. Like the area just to the
north, Kaitaia has a population made up of Māori and Europeans with Dalmatian
ancestry—many of the gumdiggers arrived from what is now Croatia. Māori nicknamed them tarara, meaning
fast-talkers, other Europeans called them Dallys. Many of these emigrants sent for wives and
families to follow them; their descendents still live in the area and their
surnames appear on street names and businesses.
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| At the Te Ahu Centre |
Inside
the circular atrium we admired the carved pou that represent the local iwi
(tribes). There was also one that
celebrated the Dalmatian community.
Upstairs a walkway encircled the building and we were able to examine
the tops of the pou at close quarters, as well as the flock of godwits that
were suspended from the ceiling. Godwits
gather along the coast north of Kaitaia prior to migrating to Siberia and
Alaska in the autumn.
We
took the car and went exploring the North Hokianga, heading west on the
Kaitaia-Awaroa road for Ahipara, at the foot of Ninety Mile Beach. Actually fifty-five miles (88 kilometres)
long, it is a beautiful stretch of sand.
Officially a public highway, tourist busses drive along it, taking
customers to the huge dunes near Te Paki Stream and on to Cape Reinga. Once the beach was famous for toheroa (a large
shellfish), but gathering is now banned because they came close to extinction. The smaller tuatua can still be found though,
and are usually cooked up in fritters.
Shipwreck Bay, to the left of the township, is aptly
named. At low tide some of the wrecks are
still visible. Above Shipwreck Bay the
Ahipara Gumfields Historic Reserve stretched inland. In the late 1800s these gumfields were home
to 2,000 people, and boasted three hotels and several shops. Bullock teams carried
the gum to waiting ships at Shipwreck Bay.
As we drove through the scrubby, featureless, empty landscape it was
hard to imagine the area in its heyday.
We took the Kaitaia-Awaroa Road to Herekino township,
which is on one of two small harbours between Ahipara and the Hokianga
Harbour. Herekino Harbour was marked as
'False Hokianga' on early charts because of the similarity of the
entrances. The H.M.S. Osprey was lost here in 1846 when the captain mistook the
features at the heads. Dalmatian immigrants began growing grapes at Herekino
and in the early years of the twentieth century there were more than a dozen
vineyards. As late as the 1960s Herekino
was a thriving township but then the highway was sealed through the Mangamuka
Gorge, leaving Herekino stranded in the backblocks.
Driving these windy roads through bush-covered hills, we
were traversing a landscape devoid of people.
An ancient villa set back at the edge of some trees caught my eye and I
wondered who lived there—and who had
lived there in days gone by. Broadwood,
another 21 kilometres east of Herekino had a store. A pair of old men sat outside leaning on
their walking sticks, watching the world go by.
There was not much world going by.
We moved Tangaroa
to the area known as the 'top of the harbour', back to our old spot by the
tavern at Horeke. We had previously
visited when we completed the Twin Coast Cycle Trail and when we checked out
the Mission Station. This time we wanted
to explore the Wairere Boulders.
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| At Wairere Boulders |
We took the car along the Taheke-Horeke Road, turning at
McDonnell Road. In the nineteenth
century there was a village called Wairere in this valley, which is the site of
the first water-driven sawmill in New Zealand.
When Rita and Felix Schaad bought the property in 1983 they had no idea
that there were huge boulders in their jungly bush. After discovering the fluted basalt rocks
they researched their history and geology, discovering that the fluting was
caused by the leaching of acid from the kauri trees that used to grow all over
the surrounding hillsides. The couple built pathways amongst and around the
boulders, eventually opening the park to the public. We spent an hour or two walking the tracks
that looped up the valley sides, marvelling at the size of the boulders. Some are stacked above and beside others,
giving the impression they may fall at any moment, though in reality they have
been in that position for centuries.
There is free overnight parking for self-contained motorhomes and, since
our visit, the owners have opened a cafe.
All the more reason to make another trip out that way!
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| At Wairere Boulders |
Back on SH 12 we journeyed west and took the turn off to
the harbourside settlement of Rawene.
This is New Zealand's third oldest European settlement and it had a post
office as early as 1845. Some of its
early buildings survive, clustered around the waterfront. Many of these are galleries and cafes; our
favourite was the Boatshed Cafe, sitting on piles over the water.
After a coffee and cake we crossed the road to look
around Clendon House. This lovely old
building was built in the 1860s for James Reddy Clendon who had been a witness
to the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, a magistrate and the American
Consul. Clendon made and lost his fortune
several times and on his death in 1872 left his wife, Jane, in straitened
circumstances. We learned how the plucky
woman managed to keep the creditors at bay, hanging on to possessions and
keeping the family together until her death in 1919. The property remained in the family until
1972 and is now in the care of Heritage New Zealand.
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| Clendon House |
The Hokianga Ferry plies the harbour waters from Rawene
to Kohukohu, on the northern bank. We
joined the short queue and were soon safely aboard the ferry enjoying the 15-minute
trip. Seeing the settlements from the
water was quite magical.
Just over a century ago Kohukohu had a population of
around 1,000, and the timber milling and ship building industries of the
Hokianga were centred here. Now there
are about 150 inhabitants, many of them artists and writers. Strolling around Kohukohu's historic precinct
we really got the sense of how big and prosperous the, now tiny, settlement
once was. Fire has destroyed many of the
old wooden buildings but enough remain to give a good impression of the wealth
that the people once enjoyed here. We
walked across a little footbridge, discovering it was built in the 1840s from
Sydney sandstone and was the first stone bridge built in New Zealand.
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| Kohukohu |
Back at Rawene we headed toward the mouth of the Hokianga
Harbour and the settlements of Opononi and Omapere. On the way we turned off to look at, what are
probably one of the most unexpected things in the Hokianga. These are the Koutu Boulders, sometimes
described as Hokianga's best kept secrets.
We found these huge spheres along the beach between Koutu
and Kauwhare Points, after turning off SH 12 a few kilometres east of
Opononi. Like the more famous boulders
at Moeraki in the South Island, these are concretions and have taken around
five million years to grow. There is a
small car park off Koutu Loop Road near the beach. We parked here and made our way along the beach
finding that the further we walked the larger the rocks became. Some specimens were enormous—more than five
metres in diameter. The walk was about
an hour's return trip and we went at low tide—it is possible, but trickier, at
high tide. What was truly magical about
visiting the Koutu Boulders was the fact that we were the only people there,
unlike Moeraki which is always crowded with visitors.
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| Koutu Boulders |
Opononi and Omapere are twin settlements and from their
sandy beaches we looked across to the huge dunes of North Head—it was like
looking across to the Sahara. Constantly
shifting, forming sculptural towers, ridges and overhangs the dunes are of
spiritual significance to Māori. The
dunes can be visited by boat from the wharf at Opononi. We stopped to photograph a small statue near
the Opononi Hotel. A child and a dolphin
are shown frolicking together in the shallow water, commemorating the dolphin
known as Opo. Back in 1955 a female
dolphin swam into the harbour and stayed.
She was happy to play with beach-goers and became famous. Locals named her Opo. Unfortunately at the end of that summer Opo's
body was found. It was assumed she had
been accidentally killed by fishermen who had been using dynamite.
From Omapere we walked up the hillside to the Arai-Te-Uru
(South Head) Reserve. From here there
were views in all directions, though our eyes were drawn to the ocean and the
headlands at the harbour mouth. Legends
say that Arai-Te-Uru and Niua (North Head) are the names of taniwha (water
monsters) that Kupe left to guard the harbour entrance when he sailed back to
Hawaiki. Māori mariners called on the
taniwha for protection but Europeans built a signal station. Remains of the signal station, pilot house
and boatshed can be seen at the reserve.
From Omapere, SH 12 headed south through the Waipoua
Forest. We would return later to explore
the kauri forests of Waipoua and Northland's west coast.
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| View from South Head |
