Hokianga

The Hokianga is in the Far North District, which is in the Northland Region. The area is 120 kilometres (75 mi) northwest of Whangarei—and 40 kilometres (25 mi) west of Kaikohe—by road. The estuary extends inland for 30 kilometres (19 mi) from the Tasman Sea. It is navigable for small craft for much of its length, although there is a bar across the mouth.

12,000 years ago, the Hokianga was a river valley flanked by steep bush-clad hills. As the last ice age regressed, the dramatic rise in sea level slowly flooded the valley turning it into a tidal saltwater harbour with abundant sheltered deep water anchorages. This was the harbour that the explorer Kupe left from, and in 1822 it was home to the first European timber entrepreneurs.[1] southern right whales possibly frequented the bay historically, prior to significant depletion of the species caused by commercial and illegal hunting.[2] Today, large whales are rarely seen in the bay, although the harbour is a well-regarded area in which to watch smaller dolphins and killer whales.[3]

The area around the harbour is divided in three by the estuary. To the south are the settlements of Waimamaku, Omapere, Opononi, Pakanae, Koutu, Whirinaki, Rawene, Waima, and Taheke; to the north are Broadwood, Pawarenga, Panguru, Mitimiti, and Rangi Point; and at the top of the harbour upstream from the narrows are Horeke, Kohukohu, and Mangamuka.

According to Te Tai Tokerau tradition, Kupe, the legendary Polynesian navigator and explorer, settled in Hokianga in approximately 925 AD, after his journey of discovery from Hawaiiki aboard the waka (canoe) named Matahorua.[4] When Kupe left the area, he declared that this would be the place of his return, leaving several things behind—including the bailer of his canoe. Later, Kupe's grandson Nukutawhiti returned from Hawaiiki to settle in Hokianga.

Motukiore Island - where Kupe placed the Kiore on his arrival

In the 14th century, the great chief Puhi landed just south of the Bay of Islands. The tribe of Puhi, Ngāpuhi, slowly extended westwards to reach the west coast and to colonise both sides of Hokianga. Māori regard Hokianga as one of the oldest settlements in Aotearoa, and it remains a heartland for the people. Rahiri, the 17th-century founder of the Ngāpuhi iwi, was born at Whiria pā to the south of the harbour, where a monument stands to his memory.

Mouth of the Hokianga Harbour, with the Tasman Sea to the left and Hokianga Harbour to the right

In the course of expansion, Ngāpuhi created and maintained over centuries a complex network of walking tracks, many of which evolved into today's roads. Wesleyan (and, later, Anglican) missionaries were guided along these ancient routes to make their own discovery of Hokianga and its accessible timber resources. Their reports soon reached merchant captains in the Bay of Islands.

Captain James Herd of the Providence[5] responded first, and with disgraced missionary Thomas Kendall as guide and translator, crossed the bar and entered the harbour in 1822. His was the first European ship to do so, and it sailed away with the first shipment of timber from the Hokianga. His success inspired a strong following—the deforestation of Hokianga had begun and would be complete by the turn of the century.

Hokianga Harbour from Rawene

The only disincentive to Hokianga's exploitation was the harbour bar. Of the hundreds of ships that successfully negotiated it, records show that 16 were lost. Most came to grief when leaving fully laden, becoming caught in the wind shadow cast by South Head, where deep water lay. A temporary lull or change in wind direction could cause a sailing ship to lose steerage way and be swept onto the rocky shore. In 1828, the missionary schooner Herald, built by Henry Williams and sailed by Gilbert Mair, foundered while trying to enter Hokianga Harbour.[6] The last recorded shipwreck involved the schooner Isabella de Fraine, lost with all eight crew in July 1928 after capsizing on the bar at the entrance to the harbour.[7]

In 1837, a French commoner with delusions of being an aristocrat, the self-titled "Baron" Charles de Thierry, sailed with 60 settlers into this hive of export activity to claim an immense tract of land that he believed he had purchased 15 years earlier in exchange for 36 axes. He was eventually granted about 1,000 acres (4 km²) at Rangiahua where he set up his colony, declaring himself "Sovereign Chief of New Zealand", a title that failed to endear him to Ngāpuhi. His project collapsed, but it highlighted to the Colonial Service the need to protect against rival European powers.

The year after de Thierry arrived, another Frenchman, Bishop Jean Baptiste Pompallier, arrived, with the aim of establishing a Catholic mission. He found the southern shores firmly in the hands of Methodist and Anglican missionaries, but the northern side was ripe for conversion. His remains, recently claimed by Ngāpuhi, lie buried where the mission began. Today the harbour, like the Reformation itself, stands between Protestant and Catholic.

Within six days of the Waitangi signing, Governor Hobson, keen to secure full Ngāpuhi support, trekked across to the Mangungu Mission House near Horeke where 3000 were waiting. The second signing of the Treaty of Waitangi took place on 12 February 1840. With the appropriate signatures (and a few inappropriate entries) Hobson could immediately claim support from the biggest tribe in the country.

The car ferry at Rawene

While the fate of the country was being signed into history, the axemen of Hokianga scarcely missed a beat. At any one time, as many as 20 ships could be loading Hokianga timber. Whole hillsides, suddenly bared of vegetation, began to slip into the harbour, choking its tributaries with mud.

The relationship between Māori and Pākehā (European) settlers was frequently tense, never more so than during the Dog Tax War of the 1890s, which largely centred around Hokianga.

By 1900, the bulk of the forest had sailed over the bar and the little topsoil that remained was turned to dairy farming for butter production. Most of the cream delivered to the Motukaraka Dairy Factory was carried there by a fleet of about fifty locally-built launches which criss-crossed the harbour daily, creating in the process a service for both passengers and freight. For half a century, the communities on both sides of the harbour were linked internally by sea transport, before improved roads in the 1950s finally displaced this energetic flotilla and the harbour once again divided the community.

By 1914, a rustic telephone system linked some of the Hokianga communities with each other and with the outside world. A government-subsidised, weekly coastal shipping service ran between Onehunga and Hokianga, bringing in freight and taking away butter.[8]

The communities of Horeke and Rawene are the second- and third-oldest European settlements in New Zealand. Rawene is still the most important of the coastal settlements in the Hokianga and is where the base of Hokianga's community owned health services (Hauora Hokianga) is located, on top of the hill at the Hokianga Hospital.

The first major industry of the region was based around the kauri trees, both logging and the gum, the strong thick resin which came from the trees. After the forests started to thin, dairying and cheese production took over as the mainstay of the economy, but they too fell away after the closure of the Motukaraka Dairy Cooperative in 1953. For a while during the 1970s and 1980s, there was little economic base for the area, and it became a haven for alternative lifestylers.

In recent years, however, tourism has become of significance to the region. Attractions such as the great kauri trees of the Waipoua Forest (including the country's largest tree, Tane Mahuta), the historic waterfront villages of Kohukohu and Rawene, cafes, the Horeke basalts, beaches, historic buildings, nature walks, horse trekking, boat trips, and fishing are bringing more visitors every year. In 2002 the first walking tracks were opened at the Wairere Boulders allowing a close inspection of the basalt rocks in the Wairere valley.

Omapere wharf

Three iconic and very different figures in New Zealand history have been closely associated with the Hokianga.

There are composite (years 1–15) schools at Opononi, Panguru and Broadwood.

There are also primary schools at Mangamuka, Horeke, Kohukohu, Matihetihe, Omanaia, Pawarenga, Rawene, Waima, Whirinaki, and Umawera.

• Weller brothers

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Hokianga.

• Hauora Hokianga Hokianga's community governed health services
• Hokianga Map An interactive google map by Hauora Hokianga
• Hokianga from the NZ Community Development Trust
• Hokianga Tourism Association
• Hokianga History and Tourism
• Dictionary of New Zealand Biography essay on Dame Whina Cooper
• Rawene Website
• Horeke Community Website
• Kohukohu Community Website