Former Te Awanga resident Colin Trevelyan, a collector of old cars and cameras, once owned the Living Image Vintage Camera Museum and a commercial hovercraft that took visitors out to see the gannets.

Trevelyan has a photographic memory, reciting histories, model numbers and quirky collector’s tales about his colossal camera collection that quickly merge into adventure stories of his exploits on the oilfields or his acquisition of rare classic cars.

At the dawn of the 1960s he had a paper round, was part time Waipukurau exchange operator and taking photographs at weddings and social events for Bob Partridge at Wendy Studios.

He left school early to work as a linesman for the local Power Board then signed on as a deckhand on a ship heading for South Africa; got drunk, missed the return boat and ended up building power pylons to the gold fields. After bumming his way around Europe, he bluffed his way into a job on the oil rigs in Norway, eventually rising through the ranks and acquiring highly paid skills.

In the 1970s and 1980s when he was working month on, month off, in highly paid roles on the oil fields in the Middle East and other parts of the world he would return to New Zealand and purchase property. “I had 15 houses around Te Awanga at one stage…because they were going cheaply. I think I paid $20,000 for 216 Clifton Rd in 1977 which we kept as a holiday house.”

By 1990 he was with Schlumberger “in charge of 200 guys working two semi-submersible rigs off Iran and through Iraq then off Malaysia.” He claims to have been around the world over 100 times with the oil industry and even after his retirement in November 1999, was still consulting.

He and his late wife Anne lived in 316 Clifton Rd, “then we lived in 314, and 320, and then 322”. He recalls around 1990 how the Hastings District Council wanted to put footpaths in the village but some of the locals protested.

“They wanted to keep their lawns and drains, so the council had all this money to spend and used it around my shop putting in culverts, making car parks in front of the museum which was good for me. But then new people moved into the area and wanted footpaths but the money had already been spent.”

Irrepressible entrepreneur

The irrepressible entrepreneur was always on the lookout for something to keep him inspired and occupied. Having invested so much in the Cape Coast he began to think of how he could contribute to the tourism experience by attracting more people to the area.

He had seen hovercraft operating between land and sea to service difficult areas where he worked in the oilfield and began considering the possibilities back in Hawke’s Bay.

He looked around and after doing some market research contacted a company in Queensland Australia and invested in a purpose built $540,000 carbon fibre, 18 foot (5.4m) wide, 50 foot (15m) long hovercraft with business class seats capable of travelling between 30-50 knots.

He created Beach Crest Tours in 1993, based around the 20-person capacity of the 4.5 tonne Ladyhawke, based in a large shed in Hardinge Rd, close to the ocean. He says there used to be a colony of little blue penguins who often wandered into the shed when he was there.

The Ladyhawke was powered by a 300hp turbo charged Cummins diesel engine with two hydraulically driven counter-rotating fans on the front and two thruster propellers driven directly from the motor. It could do a leisurely round trip to the gannets in 90 minutes for around $60 per person.

While not wanting to encroach on existing tour operators, he believed the hovercraft would differentiate the gannet tours experience. This was confirmed in discussions with the Napier City Council tourism arm before gaining all the various permits and consents including landing rights.

The Department of Conservation also signed off permission to land at Black Reef near the gannet colony.

Trevelyan claims, his was the only commercial hovercraft in New Zealand at the time. His initial goal was to take tourists to enjoy local restaurants or head out Black Reef at Cape Kidnappers to get an oceanside view of one of the largest inland gannet colonies in the world.

Beach Crest Tours

The Beach Crest Tours hovercraft business was something of a hobby as he was still away every five weeks working on oil rigs in the Middle East. He had a couple of operators for the hovercraft, one was efficient, the other he later discovered was offering free rides to too many ‘friends’.

After two successful seasons he found the bills weren’t being paid and began to examine his options.

In conjunction with a couple of other business partners Trevelyan was surprised he had been able to borrow $800,000 from the bank. He now put to his bank manager the challenge that the bank’s investment was now at risk and he needed to consider other uses for his hovercraft to clear the loan.

Trevelyan was aware of concerns at Auckland Airport about getting out across the mudflats if there was a crash or a plane missed the approach to the runway, particularly ahead of the 1999 APEC summit with world leaders flying in to the Queen city.

The bank manager made the appropriate calls; government officials came to see the hovercraft and Auckland Airport took out a two year lease which meant the bank got its money back.

Trevelyan says his part in the deal was overseeing the training of 24 operators who could drive the 18-seat closed hovercraft.

After the lease period he got the hovercraft back and stored it for a time in the Ahuriri shed not giving much thought to what he might do with it until he got a call from a Canadian entrepreneur who owned a shipping line and tourist outlets.

Trevelyan had to rapidly take it out of mothballs, prove it was seaworthy, and up to scratch, and take it 30 miles offshore with the entrepreneur, bank manager and lawyers prepared to sign off a deal in international waters to avoid accruing GST.

He arranged for a large crane to pick up the hovercraft, deposit it in the Clive river at 7am on the designated day then pick it up and deliver it to the cargo hold of the Canadian’s ship if the deal was successful.

The craft performed well, the money changed hands, and the hovercraft was aboard ship before a call came from the Hasting City Council asking about an un-permitted hovercraft launch in the Clive river. As it was no longer his property, he denied any knowledge and heard no more.

Photographic memory

Trevelyan’s passion for collecting cameras is one of his better known exploits. It outgrew his home, spilled out into his museum at Te Awanga to considerably larger premises on the other side of the Black Bridge, and to the old National Bank building in Waipukurau for a time.

He opened the Millennium Museum of cameras and photography in time for the township’s 150th anniversary in October 2017 by three years later it seemed there weren't enough people interested in viewing one of the world’s largest collections of camera’s so that closed down.

Currently the 70-year old’s meticulously displayed and documented accumulation of photographic memorabilia fill all seven rooms an old homestead with the dining room, lounge and passageways filled with everything from 1800s era full-plate tripod box cameras to ‘affordable’ Box Brownies, Instamatics, Polaroid’s and hybrid cameras that can capture digital and film.

The block he owned in Te Awanga where his stored his cars then ran his photographic museum was on-sold in 2016. It’s now an outlet for imported furniture from Europe and the neighbouring former post office building, once used for rental accommodation but full of asbestos, has since been demolished.

The hovercraft? Well the former Cape Coast tourist attraction after being used to show tourists the sights on a Canadian Lake was the last he heard, still fully functional and being used for crew changes on Alaskan oil rigs.

Derek van Asch was a local legend; a do it yourself, number 8 wire inventor, founding member of the Haumoana fire brigade, pioneering pea cropper for Jim Wattie, keen photographer and film maker.

Derek once owned 100 acres of land from the massive old gum tree at the entrance to Haumoana across to East Rd and in 1947 donated a section for Memorial Park. Van Asch street commemorates the family’s generosity.

The van Asch family have a long pioneering history from creating new methods of teaching the deaf to breaking in rugged land in the remote Whanganui region and establishing the prestigious Craggy Range property under the shadow of Te Mata Peak.

Derek’s grandfather Gerrit van Asch, born in Holland in 1836, was a pioneer of lip reading for the deaf. He learned ‘the German system of articulate sounds’ and was asked to move to London, where sign or finger language was banned in favour of the spoken language and lip reading.

To succeed in London, he had to learn English and adapt the first purely oral deaf school in an English-speaking country.

Gerrit married Emmerline Drury of Sunderland Wales in 1866 and after establishing his own teaching programmes, was asked by a Christchurch committee to become director of the government-supported school for the deaf in New Zealand.

He, Emmerline and their six children arrived in Christchurch aboard the Scottish Prince in 1879 and settled at Sumner. Their oldest child William van Asch, born in Manchester, England in 1867, attended Christchurch Boys High School and Lincoln College.

William married Mattie Jamieson of Christchurch and they had five sons and a daughter; Ralph, Derek, Piet, Ivan, Mary and Gerrit who were raised along the upper Waitotara River, north of Wanganui, where he was sent to open up dense bush country.

A rugged upbringing

Access to the Waitotara land called Kapara (a hard resinous wood), where William build a whare (house) of timber and sacking, was only possible by horseback. “Every six months they’d come into town and stock up,” says Derek’s daughter, Sophie Henderson.

William built his own power station and the first mill from which he supplied timber for the Ngamatapuri Church. They also had a house on the main road at Waitotara which they occupied during the winter months. His four brothers Arnold, Harry, Gerrit and Arthur all joined him when they left school. A Maori man Tom, from the Sumner deaf institution, remained with them for the duration of his life.

At one point, William nearly gave up farming the steep, gorge country where he often lost cattle. On exploring the possibility of land in Queensland, Australia and learning how tough the life was for women, he returned to New Zealand.

Sophie’s paternal grandmother Mattie had been a tennis doubles champion in Christchurch before she married. When they settled at Kapara, one of the first things the couple did was build a tennis court.

Around 2003 family members went back to see the old place, taking a jetboat up the Waitotara River. “There were no pathways so we had to make our way through the dense bush but the old whare was still there along with the water system and mill he established and the remains of the tennis court. It was overgrown by the hydrangeas and trees they had planted,” said Sophie.

The family moved to Hawke’s Bay, acquiring a large sheep farm beside the Tukituki river at the back of Havelock North which they named Craggy Range Station. “It would take a couple of days to go around it on horseback,” says Sophie.

The architect William Henry Gummer designed a big house for them in 1918 but they struggled to make ends meet after WW2 war broke out. William van Asch fell into a deep depression. He died in 1930. The children were raised by mother Mattie who was eventually forced to sell Craggy Range.

In 1935, Derek married Sophie Elizabeth Davidson at her family home Woodcroft, a Chapman-Taylor built home in Simla Avenue, Havelock North. The couple moved into a cottage near the Red Bridge on the road to Waimarama, raising two girls Margie and Sophie.

Investing in Haumoana

In 1942, after the sale of the remaining Craggy Range property, Derek purchased 100 acres (40 ha) of land from the entrance to Haumoana south to Keighleys poultry farm in East Rd.

Derek’s wife, Sophie, died in 1944 aged 32-years. He later married Marion Miller and the family moved to Te Awanga, investing in a further 25 acres (10ha) off Clifton Rd which they named Gelderland or ‘golden land’ a term that reminded the family of Holland.

Derek grew grapes on the new property and tried his hand with a range of cash crops at Haumoana including Cape gooseberries, poppies and potatoes but was most successful with grass seed, potatoes and peas grown for Jim Wattie.

“Mr Wattie asked my father whether he would like to try growing peas as a trial crop for his cannery. It worked so well we always had the best and biggest crop. At the end of every season he would bring us a big box of tinned peas,” says Sophie.

During the war, Derek was in the home guard or as Sophie puts it ‘Dad’s Army’. There were concrete lookouts all along the Napier waterfront including local gun emplacements on the shingle bank in front of the van Asch property.

“People had to place brown paper in their windows after someone claimed to have spotted a Japanese submarine out in the bay.”.

Sophie says her father should have been an engineer as he was always making things. Those skills were most likely passed down the family line as his father William insisted they learn from their mistakes.

Driving lessons for example meant rotating from behind the wheel to the backseat if an error was made and letting the next person have a go. “He would let the boys build things and only when it didn’t work would he tell them why…I think it was like that for Dad as well. We always had to fix our own punctures and do electrical repairs.”

Engineering innovation

Sophie recalls her father looking for the smartest ways to crop and harvest and one day returned from a visit to a mercantile company in Hastings with a large harvester on appro.

The harvester was meant to be towed around by a tractor but he wasn’t happy with that and made modifications by adding an engine, much to the concern of the company representative who turned up unexpectedly to see him driving it around the paddock.

That harvester became something of a legend in Te Awanga working the van Asch property and that of Bill Shaw. Bill’s father had lost his life in the war and Derek and others “in the close and happy community” helped him run the farm.

There were many old tractors and engine parts on the property which Derek adapted to meet his farming needs and locals often approached him to adjust or modify their machinery.

Among his own adaptation was a modified hands-free ‘quad bike’ operated by foot pedals so he could spray between the rows of grapes on his property.

As a founding member of the local fire brigade, he helped convert an old truck into a temporary fire engine. “It was his passion, he really loved making old things into new things,” says Sophie.

Derek transformed an old garage door into a trailer that he towed behind a tractor to take people around Cape Kidnappers. He was also a keen photographer, taking many photos and slides around the region and making amateur movies.

One year his interest in nature and photography saw him accompanied to the gannets by famous broadcaster and naturalist David Attenborough.

Land for a memorial

Derek eventually sub-divided the Haumoana land into smaller farms, orchards and residential sections. In 1947 he gifted a portion to the Hawkes Bay County Council to establish a park as a permanent memorial to those who lost their lives in WW2.

After negotiations with the council, the plans of the Haumoana Beach Improvement Society (HBIS) and the Internal Affairs Department for Haumoana Memorial Park went ahead.

HBIS requested in 1951 that the road leading to the gated entrance of the park, unofficially known as Richardson’s Rd, be named Park Avenue. While council minutes show this decision was approved in November no effort was made to create a sign.

In 1954 a further request was made, this time to name it Memorial Park Avenue, with a sign finally put in place. A Memorial Arch was erected at the entrance to the park and the Haumoana Memorial Pavilion was built between 1955-56 coordinated between the county council and community with a subsidy from Internal Affairs. Local architect John Scott contributed the design at a nominal cost.

A memorial plaque on the entrance archway includes the names of soldiers from the area who lost their lives in both wars. In the Haumoana Memorial Hall there’s a record of 90 men from the area who saw active service including 15 who lost their lives.

From around 2012 the Hastings District Council with support of the Scott family and the local community undertook work to restore the hall which had fallen into a state of disrepair. This included advice from John Scott’s eldest son Jacob, a renowned artist and architectural designer.

Derek van Ashe eventually divided the front of his Te Awanga property, known as the shingle bank, into two sections for his girls; the oldest daughter Margie who married Dr Jim Perry and Sophie who married Collier Henderson in 1959.

Collier was teaching in Gisborne where the couple remained for four years, before moving to Auckland. When their children grew up they returned to Te Awanga around 1990. Later, “when the council allowed it”, Collier and Sophie built adjoining accommodation for their son Mark and his wife Suzy who created Golly Gosh art and photography studio.

Sophie and collier moved away in 2018 when the property was sold to John and Sue Nation.

Sources:

Despite having a mountain, a county, a beach, streets and so much more named after him, Captain James Cook, remains a polarising personality 250 years after he first sailed into Aotearoa with the HMS Endeavour crew.

Cook is usually applauded for his navigational and mapping prowess; this commemoration however, the replica Endeavour has been denied access to Mangonui and refused a Maori pohiri in Gisborne, and the captain has been pilloried as a white supremacist, murderer and ‘barbarian’ for paving the way for the worst excesses of colonisation.

The sombre consideration that at least eight lives were lost in his first eight days in the country has dominated this year’s Tuia Encounters 250 with the focus shifting more to Maori and Pacific Island perspectives.

When Cook made initial landfall at Turanga-a-Kiwa (Gisborne) on the morning of 8 October 1769 several lives were lost (most reports say at least five and as many wounded) over two days through his response to perceived threats.

Just over a week later, on 16 October, at least two more Maori were killed aboard a waka that included high chiefs, shortly after Cook and his crew became the first Europeans to set eyes on what Maori had named Heretaunga and Ahuriri.

Scapegoat for land loss

More than $20 million has been invested to mark Tuia 250 which begins in Gisborne on October 8 and will attempt to honour Pacific navigators and give Maori and Pacific Island peoples a chance to tell their ancestral stories.

Organisers, acknowledging the impacts of colonisation, hope the mamae (hurt) of Maori is heard and understood and that stories can be shared in an honest way during the commemoration.

The Tahitian Va'a Faafaite left Tahiti on August 20 using ancient star navigation and oceanic knowledge with Ngāti Kahungunu navigator Piripi Smith on board supporting two Tahitian navigators who represent their ancestor, HMS Endeavour co-navigator and interpreter Tupaia.

The Va'a Faafaite joins double hulled waka from Auckland and Tauranga, the Endeavour replica from Australia, the Spirit of New Zealand from Auckland and the R. Tucker Thompson from the Bay of Islands as they circumnavigate the North Island and parts of the south.

After muskets and gunpowder overtook botched trading intentions at Turanganui the area was named Poverty Bay with Cook hauling anchors on October 11 and heading due south intending to complete the charting efforts of Dutchman Abel Tasman 127 years earlier.

As the Endeavour moved down the East Coast dozens of waka came for a closer look with Tupaia managing to entice some brave chiefs on board for bartering. The general response, however, was “a prodigious shouting and threatening”, shaking of spears and paddles and showers of stones thrown at the ship.

After rounding Mahia Peninsula toward what was to become Napier, five waka with about 90 men on board threatened to seize one of the ship’s boats until Cook’s men fired a four pounder over their heads.

On 15 October, now desperate to trade for water and food, Cook veered south toward the far end of the large bay, where there were steep white cliffs on either side and two large rocks resembling hay stacks near the headland.

A large canoe approached, followed by seven others containing about 160 men. As they gathered under the Endeavour’s stern, Tupaia communicated with them, “a war dance” was performed and gifts were given by the ship’s crew.

The next morning at 8am, several boats approached the Endeavour offering ‘stinking fish’. They were well behaved, and as Cook wrote in his diary, “we should have parted good friends if it had not been for a large canoe, with two and twenty armed men on board, which came boldly up along side of the ship”.

They had nothing to trade but the Endeavour’s crew still gave them “two or three pieces of cloth”. Cook was taken by a black skin thrown over one of the men in the waka “somewhat resembling that of a bear” and was curious to know “what animal was its first owner?”

He offered a piece of red baize (felt-like material) which seemed to be satisfactory. Cook believed a deal had been done but when the owner pulled off his cloak he refused to hand it over.

Incomplete trade

In good faith the cloth was handed down, then with amazing coolness the Maori crew packed everything into a basket “without paying the least regard to my demand or remonstrances”.

Soon after the “fishing boats” drew together at a distance and returned offering more fish. Among those placed over the ship’s side to hand up the fish was Tupaia’s young musician companion and religious initiate Taiato.

He was seized by one of the men, dragged into the waka and held down while the others “with great activity, paddled her off” with the rest of the canoes following.

Cook’s crew were ordered to fire. “The shot was directed to that part of the canoe which was farthest from the boy, and rather wide of her, being willing rather to miss the rowers than to hurt him.”

One man dropped and others quickly let go of the boy who leapt into the water and swam toward the Endeavour. The large canoe turned in pursuit but musket fire rained on them and the big gun was bought into action.

Cook says the boy was hauled back aboard unhurt, but terrified. Those watching the retreating waka through their glasses said they saw three men carried up the beach, “who appeared to be either dead or wholly disabled by their wounds.”

Immediately after this unfortunate engagement Cook rebranded Te Matau a Maui (Maui’s hook) as Cape Kidnappers and the bay he anchored in for the First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir Edward Hawke.

Limp for a legacy

In 1851, missionary and botanist William Colenso interviewed Zechariah Ngarangikamau who named those killed by Cook’s crew as Whakaruhe and Whakaika.

Zechariah (Hakariah) was the great grandfather of Te Ori who limped until his death, possibly around 1813, with a musket ball lodged under his knee. He was a direct descendant of Whatuiapiti and Hikawera II, who in his later years lived on a cliff top pa at Te Awanga.

Hawke’s Bay historian Pat Parsons suggests other prominent chiefs Rangikoianake and his son Hāwea were also among those on board the waka that fateful day.

Zecharaiah and the other old men told Colenso their fathers were warned by Tupaea (sp) not to approach the ship “hostilely” or they would be killed but the priests and chiefs didn’t believe they had any serious weapons.

After the ‘Kidnappers’ incident Cook sailed south to what he called Cape Turnagain, between the mouths of the Porangahau and Akitio Rivers, then tacked north again to eventually find supplies and better relations with Maori at Akito Bay and Tolaga Bay.

He then hoisted the British flag at Mercury Bay on 15 November before carrying on with his circumnavigation.

Cultural misunderstanding

Many question remain with the answers lost in the mists of time. Was the encounter with this strange waka simply part of a wero, a challenge, to determine whether Cook and co were friend or foe.

If the gift Cook was seeking to trade was a dog skin cloak, that puts another spin on the story. Dogs weren’t plentiful and a waterproof cloak made from dog skin was a prized possession (taonga) of a high chief.

Considering the high rank of those aboard the large waka that pulled Taiato on board it has to be asked whether they were simply asserting mana over their territory like they might have done with any other encroaching outsider?

The locals certainly didn’t seem afraid of confronting these strangers. Did they think they were rescuing Taiato or did he look like he would make good kaitangata (food)?

Was the Maori response shaped by news of the deaths at Tairawhiti and why did they not believe Tupaia when he warned them of the danger?

In Gisborne Cook had forcibly kidnapped several Maori and taken them aboard the Endeavour to give them gifts and try to understand more about this people ... were local chiefs attempting to do the same?

There are many reasons to put this down to cultural misunderstanding, a conflict of world views, an over-reaction to what was perceived as a threat.

Regardless, all seemed to have been forgiven on Cooks second visit in 1773 in the Resolution, when he again made contact with the people near Te Matau-a -Maui and gave them pigs, chickens, nails, yams, wheat, and vegetable seeds.

It’s true that Cook’s navigational and map making abilities, ably assisted by his Tahitian companion Tupaia, opened the way for whalers and traders and ultimately colonists to head down to the edge of the Pacific world in succeeding generations.

The real troubles for local Maori came a decade after the goodwill signing of the Treaty of Waitangi at the Tukituki river mouth on 20 June 1840 with the alienation of large blocks of land through the Ahuriri, Waipukurau and Mohaka purchases.

Chiefs who sold or leased the land were encouraged European settlement believing this would lead to tribal prosperity but the terms of that promised partnership are still being worked through 180-years later.

Sources: J C Beaglehole, The Voyage of the Endeavour, 1768 - 1771, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 1968., pp. 147-51;177-178 Anne Salmond, Two Worlds: First Meetings Between Maori and Europeans 1642-1772, Auckland: Viking, 1991, pp. 147-9. Strathan and Cadell, Voyages in the Southern Hemisphere Vol11-111 (including James Cook’s journals), London 1773, p.304, 306 Ropiha, A, Cultural Impact report for the Hawkes Bay Regional Council, Napier City Council, Hastings District Council June 2017, p17-18 Heretaunga Tamatea Deed of Settlement 2015 Journals of William Colenso 1841-1854 entry 25 April 1851 cited in Salmond, First meetings p151-152 Waitangi Tribunal, The Mohaka ki Ahuriri Report 2004 Chapter 3: The Land and its People to 1850 Images: Parkinson drawing of Maori canoe, The Endeavour entering Poverty Bay, M.T Clayton 1905 (public domain) James Cook portrait Nathaniel Dance-Holland - from the National Maritime Museum, United Kingdom, Public Domain

George and Catherine Glenny from Old Croft, Carlisle, Scotland acquired a 716 acre (290 ha) sheep farm on the slopes of Te Awanga in 1927, naming it Wilton after the village of Wilton Dene near Hawick Scotland where Catherine was born.

The “easy contoured, rolling country”, rising to about 120 metres at its highest point, land and sloping gently to the north was once part of the Tuki Tuki and Clive Grange stations and was purchased in a mortgagee sale when Major Taverner who acquired it in WW1 servicemen’s ballot failed to make a living from it.

The boundaries of the Wilton land extended from the Haggerty Estate to Tiromoana in Charlton Rd and Clifton Station’s roadside paddock near the bridge. George Glenny was offered the existing Meriwee house adjoining the property but it didn’t appeal to his wife so it was excluded from the purchase. In 1930, a new homestead was built for George, Catherine and their son Jim, was one of the most impressive along the coastal area. It was also named Wilton and located further along the escarpment, adjoining the Gordons ‘Clifton paddock’ to the north and running down to Clifton Rd in the front. Their son James (Jim) Douglas Glenny married Lorna Elizabeth (Betty) Secker of Te Awanga in 1932. Betty was born in Bangalore, India, when her father was stationed there as part of the British Army before WW1.

The Glenny family were passionate about tennis and had a court added to the property. George had won at Wimbledon in the 1890s as a junior and his daughter Margot Ritchie, who lived along Tukituki Rd was also a well-known tennis player and was destined for Wimbledon in 1939. Before she could play the threat of war was looming and she decided “to get out smartly and head home to New Zealand”, says Lorna Willis, of her aunty.

He required an operation on his ears which meant he didn’t complete his degree and it subsequently left him almost totally deaf. “We had to learn to speak very clearly.” Lorna says he never rode a horse instead opting for an old 1930 James motorcycle to get around the farm, often had one or two of his children on the back dropping them off at various places, including when he was part of the Home Guard in Napier during WW2. “He helped build the forts and gun placements on the Napier foreshore.”

Jim worked long hours raising sheep in the front of the property and cattle in the back paddocks. “He was always looking for new ways to do things and grew wheat and harvested rye grass seed in the summer.” He regularly had over 2000 breeding ewes; the majority Border Leicester-Romneys cross bred with 650 Romney ewes mated to Border Leicester rams. “By January each year he would have sold off all the other sheep on the farm and only concentrated on his special breeding plan” with crossbred ewe lambs mated with Southdown rams for fat lamb production.

He used leaves from the Willow trees growing in the front of Wilton to feed the sheep. “He knew it was good for them, something others only found out about later. He knew what he was doing and applied what he had learned at Lincoln and Massey.” Lorna says the farm never made a profit until 1950s when wool prices boomed. The Glennys also ran about 150 steers at the back of the property each winter.

Fire rips through home In the afternoon of November 1942, the original Glenny residence, described as “one of the largest along the coast”, was destroyed by fire. The day remains strong in Lorna’s memory. She was about four and a half years old, attending school in Leyland Rd when she looked up on the hill at her family house and saw flames coming out of her bedroom window.

“My parents were out and when the neighbours saw the smoke they pulled out everything they could from the rooms that hadn’t caught fire. We’d only moved into the house nine months beforehand and had previously lived with my grandparents at the Hursthouse family in Te Awanga.” The family lost everything including her aunty Margot’s wedding presents that were stored there. The cause of the fire? The power in Te Awanga regularly fluctuated due to the poor performance of the transformer causing the fridge to short out. “In succeeding years, even though the fridge was placed within a concrete box it still caught fire on at least two other occasions before a new transformer was installed by the power company.” Lorna says part of the old house had a large servant’s quarters, and her grandmother didn’t like living at the old mansion for that reason. They had become used to a relatively prosperous lifestyle but “after WW2 everything shifted.”

The double garage, used for the Te Awanga School for a few years, escaped the fire and is still there, says Lorna.

Local resident and archivist Maureen Heaps said she visited the original Glenny house several times collecting for Barnados and often gazed in awe at the lovely, 5-bedroom residence, set on two levels of lawn and gardens, enhanced with brick walls. “We heard about the fire and saw smoke rising from the ruins as we walked home from school…I was shocked at the terrible disaster. For many months after I avoided that section of Clifton Rd and walked home from school via Wellwood Terrace unable to look at those ruins on the hill.”

Later her father Mick Burden helped to clear the site, carting the rubble to use for fill and for concrete bases at the campground. “Broken pieces of pink stucco were used for building concrete paths from the back door of our house across the lawn to the gate at the back landing to the Burden’s camping ground.”

New home, less land Jim and Betty Glenny and their four daughters, Ina, Ann, Lorna and Sarah, lived in the Charlton Road cottage behind the site of the big house until their new home, also called Wilton, was completed on the original site.

There were delays until the restrictions on building were lifted in 1949 with further additions made in 1956. The brick walls and the terrace from the former homestead remained along with the tennis court.

In the early 1950’s a section on the rise between the Haggarty’s and Meriwee was sold to Mrs Frank Gordon. The drive to the Wilton woolshed and Meriwee then became Gordon Road. The Glenny’s eventually sold Wilton Farm to Paul Heeney in 1965 keeping only 16 acres and the Wilton house.

Lorna says Heeney demolished the old Charlton Rd cottage, after it had been left vacant for some time and sheep had become locked in the bathroom “creating an absolute mess” before they died. The garage remains intact, even today.

Betty Glenny died in 1967, and two years later Jim Glenny’s cousin Elizabeth Henderson (nee Pringle) came out to see the family, staying with Jim and his sisters Margot and Mary (McNeill) in Te Awanga. “They had all known each other as children in Hawick, Scotland where the Glenny’s had the Woollen Mills and the Pringles the Cardigan and Jersey mill. Jim married Elizabeth in 1970, and to her initial distress became known as ‘Dunty’, a pet name previously only used by family back in Scotland. Elizabeth had two daughters, Catherine (Polly) and Susan.

Having lived in Te Awanga for 40-years Mrs Glenny recalled deliveries of meat and fish and baked goods into the village when most residents were still only there for the weekends or holiday.

London Times, 19 Sept 1932 http://george-powell.co.uk/family/1767.htm Farms and Stations of New Zealand, G.A. Tait and Allison, Cranwell Publishing, Auckland, 1961 Maureen Heaps typewritten and handwritten notes. Mrs Glenny interview by Heather Scherger for TAPA newsletter, Dec 2009 vol 31, no 3

Ian Hope, motor mechanic and long-time resident and property owner along the Cape Coast who created and curated ‘the largest collection of British motor vehicles in the world’, passed away on Sunday June 16, 2019.

His passion for Morris Minors, initially handed down from family members, turned into a classic collection of British cars that soon outgrew its original Te Awanga showroom to overfill an old kiwifruit packhouse in East Rd, Haumoana.

Ian Hope first moved into Pipi St, Te Awanga in 1973 after completing his apprenticeship at Baillie Motors in Hastings and working for Hibbert and Mathers in Havelock North. He purchased what had been Tim Hollis’s grocery store on Clifton Rd and converted the premises into Ian Hope Motors, where he kept local and visiting motorists on the road engaging in his trade repairing motor vehicles, completing warrants of fitness and operating the Europa petrol bowsers. When BP wanted to charge him $70,000 to upgrade the petrol bowsers, he decided to end that part of his business and leased his garage to Jim Lord who operated as a motor mechanic before taking over from competitor Brian Emerson down the road at Haumoana Motors.

Hope was designated the local Civil Defence representative and over time purchased several neighbouring commercial premises. From 1975 he took on a lawn mowing contract for the Hastings City Council, mowing all the verges and public lawns from Clifton to Haumoana until the council took over.When his mechanic moved on, Hope transformed the premises of his former mechanical business to house his growing collection of British cars, including a number of Morris Minors he acquired from older family members. The museum opened on 14 July 1995 with 36 cars, including 18 Morris Minors.Converted PackhouseHe then learned the K Pac Packhouse, a kiwifuit packing shed in East Rd built on the site of a former trotting stables was coming up for sale in 1998, so he put in a bid.The massive building next to Keighleys Poultry farm had employed 90 people at its peak until root stock was sold offshore undermining local supply opportunities for the former Chinese gooseberry. It was also an apple packing house for a time.

His application for consent initially met resistance as a non-complying activity with Hastings District Council limiting commercial activities such as museums to 560sqm. The packhouse was on 2.43ha of land.

Neighbours Keighley’s Poultry Farm feared visitors would complain about the smell, dust and flies and force the closure of the 50-year old poultry business. In giving the green light for the museum, the council said the effect on the environment was minor and the museum was a sustainable use of the disused building.

With some conversion, the factory now became home for Ian Hope’s ever expanding British Car Museum.

Hope believed the first experience of owning a motor car for most New Zealanders over 40-years of age would have been British made; an Austin, Morris, Triumph or Vauxhall or Jaguars, Hillman Minxes, Triumph Heralds and 2000s, Oxfords and Princesses and Rovers.

Quake Fire History Overall he collected more than 450 of them, 80% of which still run. He even had the 1923 Dennis Fire Engine used by Hastings Fire Service at the time of the Hawkes Bay Earthquake Disaster in 1931. The hand-cranked siren still amuses visiting children when they’re allowed to crank the handle.

“My aunt and uncle had a Morris Minor which I looked after while they were alive, then when they passed away in 1986 it was sitting in the Hawkes Bay sun deteriorating. I bought it as a ‘do up’ for my first great nephew, so he could have it when he was old enough. That was the start of it. Now I have 20 great nieces and nephews - and I have a Morris Minor for each of them!”

“If you want to do something for your community or neighbourhood, then keep yourself well-informed and have your two cents' worth,”

Joan Scott, on retiring from the Haumoana Residents and Ratepayers Association.

Renowned architect John Scott and his wife Joan made significant contributions toward shaping and contributing to the community spirit of the Cape Coast, carrying a legacy from their parents that continues in their children today..

John Scott designed the Haumoana Playcentre, the Memorial Park Arch and Pavilion as well as elements of Matahiwi marae, although he’s better known and applauded for church and public architecture around the country. John Colin Scott was born in Haumoana on 9 June 1924, one of seven children of Charles and Kathleen Scott who had moved to the Grange property, bordering the Tukituki River along Haumoana Rd, in 1921.

Their offspring include artist, architect, educationalist and designer Jacob Scott, artist and designer Ema Scott of Stonepeace who mostly works in stone, twins Mathew and Simon, the late Harriet, and Adam. All family members have a strong entrepreneurial streak. Mathew still lives in the old family home.

John Scott and his older siblings attended Haumoana school riding there on horseback. He later attended St John’s college in Hastings where he became head prefect and captain of the First XV. He worked as a shepherd, volunteered for the airforce at the close of WW2 and from 1946 attended the School of Architecture at Auckland University.

He studied under teachers including Bill Wilson, who’s sister-in-law Joan Moffatt, he married in 1951. He eventually pulled back his studies to part-time, never actually competing his architecture diploma, although he now took on work with two architectural firms. He moved back to Haumoana with Joan in 1952 as a self-employed architect, having begun to develop a distinctive style, inspired by traditional New Zealand buildings including the Maori whare and woolshed. He initially designed private homes including the Savage House and the Falls House in Havelock North.

In 1954, the first church he designed at St John’s College in Hastings led to a commission for Marist Chapel in Karori, Wellington. The resulting Chapel of Futuna (1958–61) is considered by some to be his best work and recognised internationally, for the influences taken from the Maori whare including a central pole, ribs of rafters and low eaves. It won the New Zealand Institute of Architects gold medal in 1968, and the first 25-year Award in 1986.

Most of John’s private commissions were in Hawke’s Bay although he designed the Palmerston North Maori Battalion Memorial Centre in the 1950s, and the Urewera National Park Headquarters building at the edge of Lake Waikeremoana which was completed in 1976 using carved panels and tukutuku.

The Aniwaniwa Visitor’s Centre building fell into disrepair despite an undertaking from the Department of Conservation who were supposed to be caretakers. A dispute between Urewera Maori and the Waikaremoana Tribal Authority meant years of neglect placing its future at risk. Despite a national outcry that this was an architectural treasure, the building was demolished in September 2016.

John Scott’s work has been described as “bold, original and distinctly New Zealand”. The host of memorial site Craig Martin says he often sketched out his ideas on the back of envelopes and scraps of paper. “Scott didn't like pretence. His buildings are honest and straightforward. The details are simple and functional. He let his materials speak for themselves. He arrived on the job in shorts and bare feet. He took his work seriously but not himself.” John died after a failed heart operation on 30 July 1992.

Haumoana Campaigner Joan Scott stood by her husband who often took the limelight due to his iconic Hawke's Bay architecture. She had left a job in the fashion industry and an eclectic social life with the country's premier poets and writers; including Bruce Mason and Frank Sargeson, to be with her new husband in Haumoana. She soon became the community's biggest fan: “I'd fallen in love with the place within a few months,” she recalled in 2004 and was often referred to as the “Haumoana campaigner”. She was chairwoman of the Haumoana and District Ratepayers' and Residents' Association for 38 years.

The group was formed in 1966 after Hyla Rd flooded and local residents wanted council action on the height of the water table after big rains and overtopping by the sea caused drainage problems.

Joan Scott was instrumental in raising money for major projects at the beachside community, including restoring the Haumoana Hall, establishing a community centre and Plunket in the old post office building. She championed the planting of trees along the streets and fundraising for the playcentre in Holden Rd as well as pioneering the Haumoana market days in the 1990s, before the Haumoana School took over. She was concerned that Hastings council had failed to maintain the Memorial Park Pavilion which had been designed, along with the memorial arch to commemorate World War 2 soldiers. She and co-campaigner Anne Dixon reminded the council of the original agreement to take responsibility for these community assets and oversaw the renovations and upgrading of the buildings and grounds, says daughter Ema Scott. She was a strong advocate for people, particularly youth, even when they got themselves into difficulty, said her friend Andy Black, she “still held onto the belief that they were worth redeeming...She always made you feel special and had time for anyone who spoke to her.”

On retiring from her post with the Haumoana Residents and Ratepayers Association, she had a simple message: “If you want to do something for your community or neighbourhood, then keep yourself well-informed and have your two cents' worth.”

Joan Scott died of a heart attack aged 74-years in October 2004, survived by six children and six grandchildren. Son Jacob Scott in her HB Today obituary said she had tireless energy but her body, wracked with debilitating arthritis couldn’t keep up.

"There is a pile of letters here to the council and to the mayors. I think the message...has been to stand up for what you believe in and be what you are. She was an inspiration to a lot of people and if she cared about something she did something about it...she couldn't just sit on the fence."

Sources: Interviews with Ema Scott and Jacob Scott https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Scott_(architect) Craig Martin’s memorial site https://www.johnscott.net.nz/ Joan Scott obituary, HB Today, Haumoana campaigner's passion will be missed, Eva Bradley, Oct 25, 2004

The Cape Coast Arts & Heritage Trust is holding a Fundraising Dinner & Charity Auction on Thursday 23rd May 2017, and is extremely grateful to our wonderful Hawke's Bay wineries who have so generously donated the following for auction at the event.

Elephant Hill - The ICON Series

The Icon series is the pinnacle of Elephant Hill’s wine-making philosophy. They are fine and rare wines with great complexity and depth. Made not only because of their exceptional quality but because their great cellar potential. Rania, Hieronymus and Salomé are all named after members of the Weiss family.

Smith & Sheth - A Unique Wine Experience

Up to 8 people, 1.5 - 2 hours, a tasting like no other

Experience our culture of wine with a personalised, expert-guided tasting and sensory journey of our passion and our craft. You'll enjoy a next-level tasting through our family of premier wines, which span some of the most distinctive regions of New Zealand, as well as taste exclusive samples direct from the barrel.

Squawking Magpie

The Gimblett Road area of Hawke’s Bay is synonymous with the production of world-renowned wines. From these much celebrated shingle soils, hails one of the region’s most exciting boutique label: Squawking Magpie.

Platinum Boxed presentation set Three Hand - numbered bottles of 2013 vintage reds. Stoned Crow presentation set - Three vintages of Squawking Magpie’s Iconic Stoned Crow Syrah 2012, 2013 and 2014.

Clearview Estate - Reserve Chardonnay 2016 & Lunch with drinks for 2

Dine at the Clearview Estate ‘Red Shed’ Restaurant: explore the comprehensive seasonal menu, featuring fresh and creative dishes making innovative use of Hawke’s Bay produce.

Te Awanga Estate - Syrah, 2015

Their Trademark 2015 Syrah has just won an almighty four trophies at the prestigious International Wine Challenge in London taking out trophies for Best Hawke’s Bay Syrah, Best New Zealand Syrah, Best New Zealand Red and Best International Syrah:

“Delicious dark fruit compote flavours, black pepper and plum, with notes of coffee and chocolate. A creamy mid palate and excellent freshness. A dusting of mocha on a velvet tannin grip. Long and very satisfying.”

Beach House Wines

Beach House Rose 2018 - We believe our 2018 Beach House Rosé is our best yet. 100% Gimblett Gravels100%, Hand picked, 100% Whole bunch pressed,100% Pure Rosé.

Beach House Levels Chardonnay 2017 - Complexity and intensity are the hallmarks of our Levels Chardonnay and the 2017 has both in spades. Power, poise and panache a-plenty for what is fast becoming one of New Zealand’s most sought after top end Chardonnays.

Beach House Montepulciano 2015 - Montepulciano is an Italian grape variety grown inthe Abruzzi region of Central Italy. Our small block of Montepulciano grape vines have adapted remarkably well to our Gimblett Gravels site and the resulting wines have produced myriad Gold medals and Trophy’s to prove it.

Auction Bids in Absence

If you are unable to attend the auction in person, but would like to place a bid prior to the event, please email your contact details to info@capecoastaht.org.nz

The Cape Coast Arts & Heritage Trust is holding a Fundraising Dinner & Charity Auction on Thursday 23rd May 2017, and the following artworks are being presented for auction at the event.

Annabel Sinclair-Thomson, owner of Paper-Works Gallery, 268 Clifton Road, Te Awanga, in conjunction with David Grieve, has kindly curated this collection for auction and liaised with the artists involved for their support on behalf of the Trust.

The works are available to view in person prior to the event, anytime by appointment or during the gallery's normal opening hours - Thursday to Sunday 11am to 3pm. You can contact Annabel on +64274507517 or by email at info@paper-works.co.nz

Dick Frizzel - First Kiss

Large screenprint from Frizzell’s “Kiss” series that pays tribute to the comic book hero “The Phantom”.

Dick Frizzel - Long Ride Home

Very large screenprint showing the silhouetted figure of comic book hero “The Phantom” astride a horse. Frizzell has often referenced the Phantom in his paintings and prints.

Paratene Matchitt - Armistice

Matchitt is known for combining traditional Maori artforms with those of modernist art. His work also references events from New Zealand's history, particularly the Maori prophetic movements of the 19th century and most specifically Te Kooti.

Andy King - Last Lick

Photograph of the iconic Cape Kidnappers peninsula.

"Shoot what moves you. Shun the familiar. Take the picture now, because in a second it will be gone forever. And never leave the house without a camera. The last point is the only one I seem to achieve with any regularity. But there we go." Andy King

Jo Blogg - Skull Mandala 3

Aiming to bring attention to important issues, such as environmental destruction and the impact of artificial products, Blogg creates whatever takes her fancy in whatever media fits her concept, be it paint, print, sculpture, found object or any combination thereof, usually with a good pinch of irony in the mix.

Fane Flaws - We Knocked the Bastard Off III

"We knocked the bastard off" is what Ed Hillary said to his good friend and fellow kiwi George Lowe upon his return from the summit of Everest.

Auction Bids in Absence

If you are unable to attend the auction in person, but would like to place a bid prior to the event, please email your contact details to info@capecoastaht.org.nz

Access to Te Awanga was by metal road until it was finally sealed in the late 1930s with metal provided from a large quarry near the present day entrance to Cape Kidnappers Farm and golf course. The first tarseal surface went only as far as Vidals (Clearview Winery) with Kuku and Pipi streets and Leyland Rd not sealed until the mid-1950s.

A number of Harbour Board lease sections were balloted immediately after WW2 with ex-servicemen in mind. The area attracted growing interest from picnickers and campers arriving in the summer months; often turning up at Burden’s camp in Graham & Gebbies horse drawn coaches.

Gas burners, cookers and lamps and candles were required for those staying a night or more; there was no electricity supply until the early 1940s when it was clear the camp needed to expand beyond its casual facilities and single pit latrine. For many years there were only two street lights in the village, one at the corner of Clifton Rd and Wellwood, and the other near the Clifton Rd end of Kuku St. Gordon Road was the driveway through paddocks to the large Merriwee residence on the hill. One of the local personalities was Jack Lambert, the rabbiter, who would set out most days on his horse with his dogs as part of the local pest control, tracking, shooting and pelting the fast breeding rabbits that were eating vegetation and digging holes in the farmland. He and his family lived at 7 Pipi St.

Maureen Heaps says Te Awanga was a place of freedom and space for young children to roam and enjoy in the 1930s and 40s, particularly the paddocks on the entire southern side of Clifton Road. She says the young people of Te Awanga had the run of the area exploring the river and adjoining farmlands and the terrain from the coastline to the Cape. “We were a large family with little money, and during the war, goods were rationed, but we had a happy secure home life, with caring parents, and we were well provided for.”

The river ran alongside the family home, so swimming, rowing boats and fishing for eels and flounder were regular pastimes. “Sometimes (we caught) herrings, and with cotton fishing lines we caught inunga and eels off the house jetty …If we asked permission and obeyed the rules, the farmers would mostly allow us on their land to pick blackberries and fish for fresh water crayfish further up the Maraetotoara stream.”

Sledging down the hill, in front of the Cape Crest house, on home-built sleds provided amusement, “with a line of blackberry bushes not always avoided at the bottom”.

The old wooden structured Clifton Bridge, downstream from the present one, led directly towards the gates of Summerlee, with tall poplars flanking the roadway between. “We played under and around the bridge, hid when a car approached, then waited for the loud rattle overhead. The rattling bridge could be heard clearly from our home in Kuku Street. To walk the bridge length on the wide top rail was a daring challenge.” In the early 1970s the bridge was being slowly dismantled after a replacement had been constructed but Rod Heaps says the 1974 flood which swept through the area completed the job for them by sweeping it out to sea.

The Haggerty property extended back into the hills with the woolshed and cow bails nearer Clifton Road, now housing ‘The Hideout’, where 90 sows were reared and 110 cows milked daily. A sturdy flat cart on rails carried the cream cans across the front paddock, for collection at the roadside gate. “It was fun riding the empty cart back and forth on the rails. A huge box thorn hedge fronting the property on Clifton Road provided welcome shelter from cold southerlies and rain for children walking home from school.”

Supplies and services Although, the village evolved its own character and some services as a rural coastal settlement, it was still reliant on outside providers. The nearest doctor was in Hastings until one took up residence in Clive in 1953 to serve the wider area.

From 1919 Weathereds Bakery from Clive delivered bread by horse and cart for many years. When McCarthy’s Store opened in Haumoana, Robbie McCarthy, who died in WW2, would do house deliveries offering a selection of bread from a large basket. Weathereds resumed their delivery after the war; unsliced bread on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The sign on the van said: “Let your baker be your grocer”

During the 1930s, A. Findlay, the butcher from Clive, drove out offering cuts of meat on Tuesdays and Fridays. Buyers would wait at their gate with plate and money in hand when they heard his horn sounding as he made his way along Clifton Rd, serving from the back of an old van in his navy and white butcher’s apron. On arrival, he would fold down the back door, reach into the back with a gaff to bring forward the side of lamb or beef and with a large cleaver “hammer down on his chopping board to present chops or other cuts”. She says his purpose-built van was lined with lead to keep the meat cool as this was pre-refrigeration days.

Graham & Gebbies stables in Hastings provided the first public transport with open coaches, mainly for picnickers, followed by Newricks motor buses in 1927-28. Then the bus service to Hastings was operated by Mr Brown Senior and then his son Jim. The ‘bus’ was actually a big car with three rows of seats. It came regularly to Haumoana and only visited Te Awanga on request but proved to be unprofitable. For a time Jack Hawley ran his car from Te Awanga to connect with the bus at Haumoana. The Government took over the service in the late 1930s. NZ Railways Road Services later left at 7.20am from the corner of Pipi St and Clifton Rd, where the tarseal ended, and returned at 6.15pm. The workers bus later added several other runs during the day. The mail was initially delivered near Clifton Station by a horse named Thunderbolt drawing a red gig until 1909. Harry Taylor from Haumoana offered the first Post Office delivery from 1920 followed by Robert McCarthy Snr. As the population increased mail was delivered by a Mr McCosh in his 1928 Pontiac. Rural mailboxes were sited along the roadside around the village; if you had the flag up, mail would also be collected.

Sandwiches and cakes In the early 1940s the Rules family owned the Te Awanga Store on the corner of Pipi and Clifton Rds. Before the end of the war and for a time after, Bill Shaw recalls a tea rooms above the store run by Mrs Rule “with sandwiches and little cakes…it was very smart.” Harry Rule had helped Shaw’s father Basil on the Charlton Rd farm. There were a variety of owners of the main store over time with short-lived competition from Mr Borrowman’s summer canteen in Kuku St and the Rosvall family who also had a small shop in Wellwood Tce not far from the present Te Awanga Hall.

Local families would walk to the end of Kuku St to buy milk from Walter Bye, often waiting for him to finish milking the cow, then return home with the ladled quantity still warm and frothy. At one stage, he used to go around Te Awanga in a little truck with two or three cans containing milk and a couple with cream. “We had a one pint and two pint dippers to measure the milk and cream,” says Maureen Heaps. Later Reg Marten-Smith from Tukituki valley delivered milk with a horse and sled, measuring out of the billy cans with a dipper until Alan McLaren took over with his grey truck and residents who put a billy at the gate would get their requested measure of milk and cream from the cans he carried. Other milk vendors included Peter Begley from Hastings who was superseded by Jack Brian and the last delivered milk to the area was by Frank Price.

Pasturised milk in bottles was introduced but money was stolen so coupons were used and they too were often stolen until home delivery was eventually ditched.

Three digit calling In one of the first new format TAPA newsletters, possibly October 1977, all the directory phone numbers were three digits. Adverts in the newsletter included the Te Awanga Store at 1 Pipi St run by Pat and Maureen McNamara; Ian Hope Motors for ‘A grade mechanical service’ pumping Europa petrol and Castrol oil’ Burdens Motor Camp with ‘Good fishing, safe swimming and children’s playground’; Haumoana Butchery under Larry Lilly was offering meat specials and Schaeffers Motel had a special, first two adults $6 each with additional adults $3 and a holiday minimum charge of $10 per unit per night. The first sub-divisions, a row of “about 30 small fishing cottages” built along the seafront north of the village in the 1950s had mostly become permanent residences by the late 1960s as the village developed west of Clifton Rd including the Gordon Rd subdivision.

In the 1977 newsletter Holt’s Real Estate was offering “desirable Te Awanga home sites” at $5700-$8100 with a $500 discount for cash. These 47 fully serviced sites were part of the Holden subdivision off Gordon Rd, opening up Redwood Place, Cedar Rd and Oregan Rd with a guarantee they were “safe from the sea….all sections are well back from the sea and in a safe non-flooding location” In March 1980 there were 50 sections for sale in Te Awanga. By July ‘83 there were a total of 265 homes in the village with potential for many more. Political boundary changes saw Te Awanga and Haumoana change from being under the Clive Ward of the Hawke’s Bay County Council to become became part of the Hastings District Council in December 1990 as did the Te Awanga Domain Board which was responsible for the lagoon.

A number of fifth generation families still call Te Awanga home, although in recent years there has been an influx of new blood, including those from main centres who have decided to buy, build, rent or develop. In 2017, Te Awanga and the areas bordering Haumoana were in a further phase of development with subdivisions approved for at least another 200 homes in succeeding years.

Sources: Maureen Heaps typewritten notes and interviews Rod Heaps interview Newspaper clipping from the Te Awanga Progressive Association (TAPA) archives Te Awanga our Home, Burden Childhood Days, self published 2009, pp 76-79

In 1909, a 1500 acre (607 ha) section of Tuki Tuki Station, once home to at least one significant fortified Maori village, was surveyed out between the hills of Clifton Station and the Maraetotara River, extending back to the Tukituki valley.

It was a harsh and difficult section of land to farm with several changes over the next two decades as different parties either leased or owned it.

Sam Charlton farmed the area from 1910 and built the homestead known as Tiromoana (Sea view); the entrance road is named after him. He on-sold to the Yules (great grandparents of a future mayor of Hastings). Among the others who tried to tame the property was a Mr Ruddock.

By the 1920s the property was in the hands of John Gatenby. He and neighbouring property owner Colonel Neilson of Summerlee Station both used the Clifton Station woolshed until a new structure was completed in Charlton Rd in 1935. The following year Gatenby sold 1536 acres (622ha) to Englishman Basil Shaw and his wife Alison.

The land was mostly hills with about 230 acres in flat, easier country where Shaw ran Romney Marsh sheep and Aberdeen Angus cattle, with shelter provided by pine and kanuka trees. He only farmed the property for a short time before being called up for military service in the Royal Navy during World War II. His ship was sunk off Java during the evacuation of Singapore and he was reported missing. His widow Alison was, according to Angus Gordon, “an extremely cultured woman” and a good friend of his parents. She lived in the homestead creating an enormous garden which in later years became “quite a showpiece”.

Basil’s son William (Bill) Shaw doesn’t believe his father intended to stay long. “He had said that if he came back from the war he would move us on. It was very awkward, dry and difficult land. It’s no wonder the previous owners didn’t last long.” With bulldozers, aerial spraying and fertiliser Bill, with help from neighbours and friends began to make a go of it “but it was still pretty hard going”. The property was run by the Guardian Trust with Frank Pulford, a former Clifton Station manager, looking after it from 1955 until Bill took over in 1962. Pulford remained on for 30-years until he retired in 1986. Shaw says their arrangement was unusual. “I wanted to make a few changes toward the end but Pulford wanted to stay on as he liked the area, so we swapped roles. I started out working for him but now he was working for me. He was a wonderful man…he could do anything and everything. He was reliable, honest and always working.”Vying for viability Angus Gordon says the Shaw family, specifically Bill and farm manager Frank Pulford, developed an extensive water system to cover nearly 1000 acres of the back country, pumping water from the river to tanks on the strategic hill then allowing gravity feeding to troughs. “They put on fertiliser, subdivided the property, bulldozed a major track down a formidable spur to the river making it a far more viable and easily accessible farm.” The carrying capacity of the farm had increased sufficiently in the late 1950s to enable 400-500 cattle to be run instead of the 100 it had supported previously. Tiromoana won the Weddell Cup and Blecher Special prize in the chiller beef competition for the best lightweight beast on hooks in the Hawke’s Bay District in 1955. The wool clip also improved from the 2000 Romney ewes and over 1000 hoggets.

As well as farming the property there were always horses around, including those owned by Bill Shaw’s older sisters Catherine and Rosemary.

An aerial view Bill took an strong interest in flying and once he got his licence at Hastings Aerodrome at Bridge Pa, he found himself especially attracted to their Tigermoth. When the club’s plane was written off in an accident, he saw similar models offered on the market for a reasonable price and purchased his own in 1969.

His first plane was a 1940 Tigermoth and later a second more comfortable New Zealand-made model. He built a hangar and landing strip behind his Tiromoana homestead and spent as much time in the air as his commitments on the farm would allow, often taking a passenger with him.

“It was magic,” he says getting up above the clouds or heading across to the other side of Cape Kidnappers where he would often land on the beach, have a swim in the sea and go diving for paua. He made many friends, including about five other Tigermoth owners in Hawke’s Bay who would often fly together. “I had a few close calls and pranged it a couple of times but never got hurt. They were one of the safest by design and nature with the passenger sitting up front.” The Old Woolshed by the road at the entrance to his Tiromoana property was a popular venue for many years, hosting social functions, dances, weddings and parties.

Bill Shaw had taken out an insurance arrangement with Lloyd’s of London to cover his farm in an arrangement where he would gain a premium pay-out in a good year or have to forfeit part of his assets in a bad year. In the 1980s, he says, a perfect storm hit Lloyds, including pollution claims and freak storms, taking it to the brink of bankruptcy, so they called in their pledges. “We were lucky to be able to keep the house and surrounding land,” says Shaw.

From the mid-1980s Angus Gordon leased back 1000 acres of the back country until 1992 when the majority was sold to Freddie and Barbara Rosenlew from Finland; two thirds of it was put into forestry and the rest leased for grazing.

Bill Shaw kept the homestead block of 160 acres where he continues to live with his wife Heather, whom he married in 1997. In 2003, they sold about 70 acres of the hill block to Charles Gordon, Angus’ youngest brother. “It’s a good thing the remaining assets are now worth more than the farm was previously, although I’m a little sad to think of the damage the forestry operation has done after all the hard work we put in to make the farm work.”

Shaw has remained on the Te Awanga property all his life. “It’s a nice combination of land types and coastal; handy to all the towns and the climate is rather special. You can head into town and go through fog and rain and back here the sun is shining all day.”

Sources: Personal interviews with Bill and Heather Shaw Archaeological Survey of Te Awanga / Parkhill Area, 2004, p2 Angus Gordon, Shadow of the Cape, A Gordon, Clifton, 2004, p.118 Farms and Stations of New Zealand, G.A. Tait and Allison, Cranwell Publishing, Auckland, 1961 Photographs: Bill and Heather Shaw

The signing of the Treaty of Waitangi on the northern side of the Tukituki river mouth was an important signal to Hawke’s Bay Maori still living in self-imposed exile at Mahia Peninsula that it was now safe to begin the slow return home.

The region had been under attack from neighbouring tribes during the Musket Wars and with Hawke’s Bay iwi and hapu (sub-tribal groups) late to embrace musket power, most believed the safest option was to accept the offer of protection from famed Ngapuhi chief Wera Hauraki at Nukutaurua.

On 20 June 1840, the S.S. Resolution, on its way north after obtaining treaty signatures in Waipounamu (the South Island), entered the Tukituki River mouth, which at the time opened up into a large lagoon, and anchored for three days close to Waipureku pa (East Clive).

Aboard were Major Thomas Bunbury and Edward Williams and the son of Church Missionary Society (CMS) head Henry Williams who helped translate the Treaty into the Maori language.

Chiefs who gathered to add their names to the document included Harawira Te Mahikai of Waimarama, Hoani Waikato of Ngati Whatu-i-apiti, Matenga Tukareaho of Nuhaka and Heretaunga chiefs Te Tore of Petane, Rawiri Paturoa and his brother Wiremu Te Ota of Ngati Upokoiri who had been living in the Manawatu.

Major Bunbury was determined to get one more signature; that of Ngati Whatu-i-apiti chief Te Hapuku who had previously signed the Declaration of Independence while visiting the Bay of Islands on 25 September 1839.

Te Hapuku had heard Ngapuhi were now slaves because of the Treaty, so Bunbury and Williams had their work cut out to counter his fears, with help from Hara, who had already signed in the Bay of Islands. Bunbury explained to Te Hapuku that Queen Victoria would be placed over all the chiefs:

“...Not for an evil purpose as they supposed but to enable her to enforce the execution of justice and good government equally amongst her subjects. Her authority having been already proclaimed over New Zealand, with the consent of the greatest number of influential chiefs, he [Te Hapuku] would find that the tribes must no longer go to war with each other, but subject their differences to arbitration; strangers and foreigners must no longer be plundered and oppressed by natives or their chiefs, nor them injured or insulted by white men. It was not the object of Her Majesty’s Government to lower the chiefs in the estimation of their tribes.”

Te Hapuku signed on June 23, convinced his mana (prestige and standing) would be increased. Unlike, the signings at Waitangi in the Bay of Islands and at Hokianga, there was no large hui with other Ahuriri and Heretaunga chiefs or any further explanation of the Treaty’s significance.

Protecting Maori interests

One of the major concerns of those looking to return to their traditional lands was the growing number of foreign ships visiting the area and the claim by W.B Rhodes to have purchased much of the region from Wairoa to Wairapapa.

On learning of this audacious assertion senior CMS missionary William Williams, now based at the Turanga mission station (Gisborne) had written to influential contacts within the British Government to have the deal overturned.

He was determined to protect Maori interests in the hope they would live peacefully on their return and be open to hearing more of the Christian message which many had heard for the first time at Nukutaurua, at the mission schools in the Bay of Islands or from Catholic priests who were visiting the East Coast.

Williams had sent one of his principal Maori teachers from Wairoa, Joseph (Hohepa) Kamon, to Ahuriri for two months from June 1840 to see how those who had remained or recently returned were faring.

An interim report on 10 July from the party of Ngati Kahungunu who had accompanied Hohepa, confirmed the people were ready for a missionary presence. Williams had few resources available to him and told the CMS all he needed was two good native teachers and a supply of books.

He promised to visit when the Columbine was next in the area. “A letter from one of the chiefs of the place requests me to send them 1000 books. A party is returning thither shortly to whom I give 7 catechisms and as many slates being all I can provide.”

William Williams and a small party of Maori teachers made a personal visit to Ahuriri in October 1840, where they conducted services at two small settlements, each attended by up to 100 people.

Maori chapel built

Back in Ahuriri to check on progress in November 1842, Williams’ diary states that Maori teachers working among their own people had built a 60 x 30 foot (18 x 12 metres) chapel at Te Awapuni (near the present day Star Compass or Te Atea a Rangi, capable of seating 400 people. On 1 November 1842, he baptised 10 of the 20 who had been under instruction.

Williams was astonished to find that wherever he went he and his teachers were preaching not to the ‘wholly unconverted’ but to people who already possessed rudimentary knowledge of Christianity:

“A great work has been accomplished in which the hand of the Lord has been signally manifest. It has not been through the labour of your missionaries; for the word has only been preached by Native teachers. We had literally stood still to see the salvation of God.”

The chapel at Te Awapuni pa at Waitangi was to become the major assembly place for the returning tribes. It was here the old Ngati Te Whatu-i-apiti chief Pareihe, who had earlier forged an alliance with Wera Hauraki to protect the besieged Heretaunga tribes at Nukutauroa, ceremonially restoring mana to the five principal chiefs Te Moananui, Te Hapuku, Tiakitai, Puhara and Tareha.

It had been agreed among the various tribal leaders that no pa or village (kainga) where blood had been spilled would be reoccupied. Still wary after the Musket War massacres they generally chose coastal sites, remaining in close proximity to each other.

The principle settlement was established by Pareihe at Te Awapuni, north of the Ngaruroro River mouth at Waitangi; to their south Kurupo Te Moananui and Ngati Hawea established themselves at Waipureku (East Clive) and Te Hapuku at Whakatu. Tareha settled at Awatoto, although by the mid-1850s he had moved to Pa Whakairo at Waiohiki. Ngai Te Upokoiri settled at Omahu under their leader, the Christian teacher Renata Kawepo, on his return to the district.

Ngati Hinepare and Ngati Mahu moved to Te Poraiti and Wharerangi and those hapu who had previously occupied the island pa at the northern end of Te Whanganui-a-Orotu (Ahuriri harbour) moved further north to the present day Esk River mouth and Petane on the north side

Pereihi, who died in August 1843, had been party to the agreement that the first permanent European residents, missionaries William and Elizabeth Colenso would occupy neutral ground between the tribal territories. The Colensos took up their swampy residence at Waitangi in December 1844.

Initially the chiefs were far more interested in economic activities such as dressing flax to buy muskets for protection than hearing his Christian message. Within months Tiakitai had returned to Waimarama, providing another signal for people to return to their homelands further down the coast including Porangahau.

The impact of the Treaty of Waitangi may not have been evident immediately but the pre-emption clause, meaning all sales of Maori land must go through the Crown first, meant existing ‘sales’ would be investigated.

The Treaty however set the tone for the many contentious deals that still lay ahead. Pastoralists looking for fresh open spaces to lease or own to graze their sheep and cattle had a keen eye on Hawke’s Bay.

Maori, well aware the world around them was rapidly changing, continued to supply treated flax, pigs, potatoes, and other provisions to visiting European ships in exchange for a widening range of trade goods, including firearms for their protection.

The various hapu returning to the work of harvesting flax from swamp areas, working cultivations for new crops and seasonal fishing and hunting expeditions, cautiously observed the growing intrusion of traders and whalers, aware of both the threats and opportunities that accompanied land acquisition.

Sources: Pat Parsons giving evidence to the Waitangi Tribunal D4:19; further comments from Parsons July 2017 bus tour Orange, C. The Treaty of Waitangi, pp.81-82. Waitangi Tribunal Reports Wai201, Hawke’s Bay the land and its people footnote 54 (www.justice.govt.nz) Williams, W. The Turanga Journals - 1840 Letters and Journals, p119 HB Today, March 2012 Joseph Angus Mackay, Historic Poverty Bay and the East Coast, N.I., N.Z, Joseph Angus Mackay, 1949, Gisborne, p165

Clifton Beach, tucked under Cape Kidnappers on the southern side of the vast sweep of Hawke’s Bay, is on the watery doorstep of a world class fishery, hosts two camping grounds, a marine club, a popular café and an historic wool museum.

The popular gannet coastal tours depart where Clifton Rd terminates; to the right is the narrow access to the embattled No.1 camp where the Clifton Marine Club is located, and to the left the No.2 campground.

Clifton Motor Camp was for many years promoted as the ideal holiday spot, offering a sheltered beach with safe swimming, surfcasting or deep sea fishing from boats that could be launched from the Clifton Marine Club ramp which had its own winch facilities.

In the early days the cabins and caravan and tent sites on the beachfront were so popular that some made semi-permanent homes there and many families from Hawke’s Bay and outside the region made Clifton Camp their holiday destination with a community of familiar faces arriving each year.

Toilet, shower and cooking facilities, a camp store and children’s playground provided everything they needed.

Today Clifton Beach is mostly steep and gravelly having taken a pummelling from the ocean. Various ad hoc protection works were undertaken by locals over the years and three times in the past decade the road became so undermined the tar-seal dropped into the ocean.

Shrinking ground

Over time about 50 camp spaces have been lost to erosion with many people moving their sites and semi-permanent baches back from the edge, and some campers and boat owners giving up altogether when plans for protection failed to be realised.

After various ad hoc efforts to protect access to the camp and Marine Club, a more serious sloping rock revetment was approved by councils between 2016-2018 as part of a wider plan for creating a more attractive end point to the popular coastal destination.

The beachfront at Clifton was donated to the Crown by Frank Gordon for a camping ground in 1936. The decision wasn’t without controversy as adjoining property owner, Colonel Neilson felt this would threaten his stock access.

For the next 15-years people swimming and sunbathing simply had to put up with the Colonel’s sheep dogs and herds passing by.

Delwyn Hall says her father Jack Butcher, who lived in Haumoana until his death aged 99-years in 2017, caught his first fish at Clifton camp at a time “when it was all scrub and lupin”.

She recalls a walking track high on the hill behind the camp before the pine trees grew, going part of the way around the Cape. “You could look out over the reefs but use of the track was stopped because hooligans used to roll boulders and branches down on the camp below”.

When the wind and sea got up, conditions could be treacherous and over many years the beach access became difficult. At the southern end of Clifton in the 1930s, the Harbour Board placed a large wooden fence in the sea to act as groynes to slow down the significant erosion that was eating away at the campground.

Locals were well aware how efficient those wooden groynes were as they build up shingle and protected other parts of the beach, although camp resident Wes Stanley still had to move out from his house until summer due to the sea washing right through it.

Delwyn and Alex Hall ran the Clifton Motor Camp between 1993-1996 when protective slab walls were erected to stop the sea eroding the area.

“After both our partners had died we met at the Gannets Bar and later were married there. Alex had the first caravan with an annex at Clifton Camp. That started a trend that later caused problems with council permits because so many people wanted to add an annex and permanently live there.”

Delwyn says the council’s response was that it was not for permanent dwellings and so all annexes had to be able to be shifted “within a minimum of eight hours if there was a problem”.

Ideal for Marine Club

Neville Bawden, who’s been a member of the Clifton Marine Club since he was about 11-years old, says close to the Cape, at depths from 70-100 metres, there’s a good array of species; gurnard, groper, kingfish and terakihi, trevally, blue cod and even tuna.

He says, everyone’s welcome to take advantage of the clubroom and facilities; some join in the fishing competitions while others simply stop to watch the boats coming and going during the holiday season. “It’s a very social atmosphere with club room and bar.”

Neville’s father Nelson Bawden used to build old clinker boats that were launched off Te Awanga and was a founding member of what was originally the Clifton Fishing Club.

Back as far as 1949 Te Awanga residents were investigating ways to make the area safer for boat owners including having lifesaving equipment available at the Te Awanga Domain.

Over the years there was growing concern at the increasing numbers of small boat owners leaving Te Awanga Beach for the open sea ill equipped even for minor emergencies. “It was quite rough at times and a decision was made to go to Clifton which was more sheltered.”

In those days, says Neville, there was a lot more land before you got to the sea there were three roads into the campground and club rooms.

The main objective of membership is to have access to a fishing ramp that enables people to head anywhere from Napier to Waimarama with locals believing there’s far better offerings near its boat ramp around Cape Kidnappers.

At its peak the club had a membership of about 400, but that had tailed off to around 170 by 2018. Like many clubs the flagging membership comes from natural attrition with fewer young people joining, often because of the high cost of boating as a hobby.

“It used to hum with 100 boats heading out at weekends although you don’t see that many out today,” says Neville.

Membership includes engineers, sparkies, builders, mechanics and others who enjoy the delights of boating and fishing. “Impromptu meetings and discussions are held, often aided by a few bottles of home brew then working bees to carry ideas through,” he says.

“We’re delighted there’s now protection for the remaining rebuilt road and hopefully it might entice a few people to come back who previously feared the road would collapse and they wouldn’t be able to get their boats and trailers in and out.”

Those heading out to this final destination along the Cape Coast can enjoy a meal, snack of coffee at Hygge (the former Clifton Café) or visit Wool World, a working museum of the region’s wool history based in the old Clifton Station woolshed built in 1886 when 25,000 sheep were shorn.

As part of the Cape Coast Reserves Plan and efforts by the Cape Coast Arts & Heritage Trust there are plans to landscape the parking, roundabout and visitor area at the end of Clifton Rd, add an information kiosk and public art highlighting the history of the area.

Sources: Interview with Neville Bawden and Delwyn Hall TAPA newsletters, Clifton’s Marine Club, HB Today in 31 October 2013. Te Awanga Our Home, Burdon Childhood Days Photos: Delwyn Hall and Neville Bawden

Te Awanga village evolved over several decades as families camped by the beach near the Maraetototara river mouth and squatters built rugged baches on the dry, swampy and stone strewn riverbed adjoining Clifton Station’s oats paddock.

Easier access to the remote coastal area was provided when the first Black Bridge spanning the Tukituki river was opened in 1888 enabling horses and drays to bring greater numbers of people to camp, picnic, swim or go boating on the large Maraetotara lagoon.

There was always the hope that someone with a horse and cart or sturdy vehicle might offer a trip around to Cape Kidnappers to see the gannets. As popularity of the area grew the Gordon’s who were the legal owners began clearing the swamp, tussock and flax for subdivisions, finding strong interest from those who wanted holiday batches or more permanent homes.

Te Awanga was originally part of the 13,500 acre (5463 ha) Kidnappers station, stretching from the Tuki Tuki valley in the west ranging south from the Maraetotara River including all of Cape Kidnappers and down to Ocean Beach.

The land was acquired from Maori then on-sold or leased by the Crown to Joseph Rhodes and others before most of it was purchased by Scotsman James Gillespie Gordon between 1859-61. The part what became Clifton Station that was to evolve into Te Awanga village was originally the Clifton Station oats paddock.

The Maraetotara River which has its origins in Mohi’s bush at Waimarama used to flow midway between present day Te Awanga and Clifton with the swampy lowlands subject to heavy flooding. There was a large estuary at the river mouth which attracted campers and visitors in the early 1900s and further south toward Clifton Beach were a series of lagoons close to what was once an established Maori fishing village.

During land negotiations between the Crown and local chief Te Moananui and others in the 1850s, an unknown portion of this land was allegedly set aside for a Maori reserve but at the last minute left out of the official documentation, says local historian Pat Parsons. After the 1931 earthquake, the mouth of the river moved north to its present location, the lagoons were washed out and what was left of the estuary, now known as Te Awanga Lagoon was greatly diminished.

The Hastings District Plan, describes Te Awanga as the ‘the Gateway to Cape Kidnappers’; slightly smaller than Haumoana, with residential streets of distinct characteristics having developed in a linear fashion along the shingle crests of the coastal strip with mature trees and vegetation.

“Kuku Street, Pipi Street and Wellwood Terrace are narrow, having an absence of footpaths or kerb and channeling and have wide grass verges”, something locals continued to lobby for.

The Te Awanga Hall, still owned by the community, has undergone several renovations and additions and is regularly used for public events, birthdays, celebrations, concerts, fitness and hobbyist meetings, with the adjoining playground and Te Awanga Domain frequented by local families and those from surrounding areas.

From the hall carpark, built on the ocean’s edge, to the left of the Te Awanga Lagoon, the waves rise and shape off the reef near the mouth of the Maraetotara River in what is referred to as Te Awanga Point surf break. This location is of local and regional significance with up to 60 cars seen parked-up during peak conditions.

NZ Surf magazine describes it as “a right-hand point break on a sandy beach (with)… a nice soft fun wave…good for surfers of all levels”.

Oats to oasis

The Burden family were among the first to stake a claim to the area north of the river from the late 1890s, regularly camping there until they purchased a residential plot in 1905 and 14-years later the land that became the local campground. Thomas Burden began using an old whaler’s bach 300m to the south side of the river to store his fishing equipment; it was surrounded by macrocarpa with rose bushes still growing in front.

The family built a number of huts on the Te Awanga side of the river while others began building fishing baches or in some cases rough accommodation where they stayed for longer periods on the other side of the river. One early squatter’s bach, says Burden’s grandson Rod Heaps, was known as ‘Muldoons’ for the former tenant. The chimney and foundations were still evident in the 1970s.

The Gordon brothers were annoyed at people camping on the Clifton side of the river mouth. Between 1908 and 1909 Edward and Frank wrote to several families asking them to desist, but no-one took any notice.

In November 1907, the local newspaper noted that locals “at Clifton and Kidnappers” were anticipating easier access across the Maraetotara River as the timber for a new bridge had finally arrived. It was hoped the County Council or Clive Road Board would “waste no time” in its construction so the public road to the beach would be more clearly defined and travelers could complete their journey “without trespassing on private property”.

Clive Leyland had purchased land north of Clifton Beach from Frank Gordon around 1890 and began subdividing it into “30 quarter acre sections” in 1908, the same year the bridge was completed. Hastings Standard, 7 May, 1908 In 1911 Frank Gordon sold a further 10 acres (4 ha) on the north side for sections along the road, accelerating the growth of what was becoming a popular seaside location.

Life at the lagoon

In 1913 photographs appeared in the local newspaper of “surf-bathers” crossing the Maraetotara Lagoon at Te Awanga with groups seated in row boats. Havelock North resident John Joll commented on family picnics at Te Awanga but had his doubts about its future. “I can never understand why a township was laid out there it was purely and simply swamp”. Wright, Havelock p.55

Just how popular the place was in those early days is contested. Boyd in City of the Plains suggested in relation to Haumoana and Te Awanga, that “on hot summer Sundays about 500 people would leave Hastings for the beach”. Maureen Heaps (nee Burden) suggests the area wouldn’t have coped.

Even as a young girl in the 1940s she never witnessed that many people coming into the area. In the early 1900s access was limited and the roads basic. Entry was still via a rough track from East Rd south to Clifton which divided at the Te Awanga Domain, near the present-day hall, leading along the lagoon or mud flat and through a portion of what is now the camping ground. The other led inland to Clifton.

In 1914 Frank Gordon sold another 10 acres (4 ha) between the river and the first block to Norman Wellwood and John Holden. This completed the triangle of land now within Wellwood Terrace, Clifton Rd, Leyland, Pipi and Kuku streets. Te Awanga was now recognised as an official settlement.

“As Mr Wellwood had left the country and John Holden was killed in an accident, John Holden Jnr as mortgagee wanted the property to straighten the affairs of the estate,” says Maureen Heaps. A group of Hastings businessmen wanted to divide it into sections but baulked at the £300 price. In January 1919, Thomas Burden paid the deposit, on behalf of his son Mick who had recently returned from the war and was operating lighters (barges) along the East Coast. Mick then undertook to settle all outstanding payments for ‘the Willows’ area.

From that time the Burden family camping spot, fronting the beach near the mouth of the Maraetotara at Kuku St and adjoining Wellwood Terrace, was further developed to became an official holiday destination known as Burden’s Camp.

Few permanent residents

Walter and Lizzie Bye establishing the first house in Te Awanga on the corner of Kuku and Clifton Rd at a time when there were about eight permanent families in the village. Their daughter Alice Steel was a two-year-old when her parents moved to the area in 1918. In the early 1920s she would walk along Clifton Rd and cut through the paddocks to attend Clive Grange School (later Haumoana School). Her father kept cows and delivered milk around the village.

Alice learned to swim in the lagoon, which in those days extended the length of Wellwood Terrace. She remembered it as a “wonderful wide clean stretch of water” in which boats could row and moor in the shingle while people swam in the sea. There were only two or three children her age living in the area and she looked forward to the holidays when the village would fill up with holidaymakers.

In the 1920s, Peter Circuit’s grandfather Dr Barcroft; one of only three doctors in Hastings, built one of the first beach homes along the front of Wellwood Terrace. “It was all blackberries, shrub, raupo and bull rushes …there were no trees.”

Circuit’s father purchased a section from the Gordon's and built a concrete home that had no reticulated water or electricity. “We just wanted a bach where we could come down, get out of the car and go to the beach. We always had to take our turn to cut the lawns … pump half an hour every morning to fill the tank up with water and work in the garden.” All cooking was done on a kerosene stove until the area was connected to electricity.

The village remained predominantly a holiday settlement for many years with beach front sections north of the domain developed between the two world wars. One of the earliest, the Tong family holiday bach on the western side of the Te Awanga Hall, was added to as the family grew. Lew and Willa Tong lived there for many years, remaining there long after their family had moved away.

The Lambert children, Myrtle, Michael and Beryl, were of similar age to the Burdens and lived at 9 Pipi St. Their father Jack Lambert the local rabbitter “was quite a character”. He kept dogs and ferrets. Mrs Amy Lambert owned and milked a cow which grazed on neighbouring properties. At times cream and homemade butter were sold to local residents.

Bill Shaw, who was born in Te Awanga, confirms Wellwood Terrace was named after Robert Wellwood, the first mayor of Hastings, whose son Norman acquired and then subdivided some of the land. Leyland Street was named for a former farm manager who worked for Wellwood. In his childhood Shaw thought maybe Leyland Street was named after the buses that were the only connection with town.

More sections sold

Lynette Boaler (nee Burden) says in the 1940s the permanent families living in Te Awanga could still be counted on two hands. Permanent residents along the riverside were the Burdens, Miss Dudding, Mr Raisey who owned a Napier butcher’s shop, Mr Grant; Mrs Love and her sons Jim and Jack (her husband was killed in WW1); the Thompsons then after a couple of paddocks the Bye’s who also owned adjoining properties.

The Hawke’s Bay Health Board had a house for its nurses. Mr Patterson, Alf Dillon, two Miss Cowans and Mr Anderson “who grew carnations and other flowers”.

Opposite the camp on Kuku Street corner was the home of the Lange sisters, one a milliner (hat maker) and the other a nurse along with their cousin Miss Lottie Sandilands. “Mr Reichenbach lived at 47 Kuku Street used to tap his walking stick on the pohutukawa tree each evening just on dusk to stop the birds roosting in it,” said Lynette Boaler.

Holiday home owners included the Fryers, Mr Shattky (founder of Shattky & Weber), Lindsay Bone the plumber and the Apatu’s who had a section next to 50 Kuku St. Other early residents included the Hursthouse family including Dan Hursthouse the dentist, the Hutchesons, the Warrens, Miss South who lived on the corner of Pipi and Clifton Road, the Rules who owned the Pipi Street store, the Battersbys opposite the community hall in a two storey house and their aunt and uncle the McNeils.

Peter Circuit recalled a Mr and Mrs Amos Atherton who came out from England and built a home in Pipi Street and became involved in pump repairs and installations. They began building baches, including a two-storey home which became the Te Awanga Store. Another Englishman, Mr Sheffield, ran the store and lived upstairs.

“The boys used to tease him and one New Year’s Eve they decided to get outside the store and sing some songs in the middle of the night to wake them up, because they hadn't waited up to see the new year in. Sheffield got a bucket of water and tipped it out on them, there were many yells and they promised to get even with him.

Circuit recalled being in the store when somebody wanted an item from under the counter; “Mr Sheffield bent down to pick it up and as he came up, a nail caught his hair and dragged off his wig and he was bald underneath. We never knew that …from then on he was called Wiggy Sheffield.”

For many years much of the area between Clifton Road and the beach was overgrown in mingimingi or Muehlenbeckia (in Maori twisted or Latin astonii or wirebrush) which Maureen Heaps describes as “bouncy bushes” where children used to play in on their way home from school.

Even after the war there were few families in permanent residence, most homes were holiday cottages surrounded by vacant sections and paddocks. Slightly to the west of Kim Crawford wines (Te Awanga Estate Wines) gate was the Te Awanga rubbish dump, where children used to “fossick and while away their time”, often arriving home late from school.

Can you add to the memories or add to the photos that we are gathering? If so, please get in touch: info@capecoastaht.org.nz

Thank you.

Sources

Pat Parsons interviews 2017, 2018 Hastings District Plan, Haumoana-Te Awanga Strategic Management, March 2013 HB Today, 100-years ago today, 7 Nov 2007 City of the Plains, A History of Hastings, M.B Boyd, Victoria University Press (for Hastings City Council), 1984, p.155 Jenny Carlyon & Diana Morrow, Cape Country, Random House- Penguin, New Zealand, 2016, pp. 106- 107 Lorna Willis interview Peter Circuit (born 1915) interviewed for TAPA newsletter Memories and notes from Jesse Burden (nee Mitchell) transcribed by Maureen Heaps (nee Burden) Maureen Heaps typewritten notes and interviews Rod Heaps interview Newspaper clipping from the Te Awanga Progressive Association (TAPA) archives Te Awanga our Home, Burden Childhood Days, self-published 2009, pp 73

More than 20,000 people head to Cape Kidnappers by tractor tours along the beach or overland by 4WD or coach each year. Tours to the gannets are one of New Zealand’s longest running eco-tourism business.

Cape Kidnappers is considered by the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council (HBRC) “a site of international importance...one of the world’s most accessible mainland gannet colonies and the subject of considerable scientific investigation.”

The 12 ha Cape Kidnappers Reserve was gifted to the Crown by property owner Frank Gordon in 1914.

There are four different gannet colonies within the 13-hectare reserve including the Plateau, the gradually diminishing Saddle, Black Reef on the beach itself 1km before the Cape and Whalebone Reef. Both the Saddle and Whalebone Reef are closed to the public but can be viewed from the elevated Plateau colony, the main viewing place for nesting birds.

Around 20,000 gannets make their home here with the overall number estimated to be growing by two percent a year. They are members of the booby family and related to shags, pelicans and frigate-birds, known to Maori as takapu, and protected at the reserve administered by the Department of Conservation.

The migration of smelt, herrings and whitebait from spawning grounds in the river systems attract kahawai and bigger fish including snapper with the gannets, seagulls and other birds creating the spectacle known by Cape Coast locals as the “boil up”, often starting around October each year.

The sounds of the birds jostling for place in the ocean frenzy as they work with the larger fish to herd the shoals of smaller migrating fish creates an equivalent human frenzy on shore as young and old run with their fishing lines or race their quad bikes to haul in crazed kahawai as the sea literally boils with activity.

Gannet parents generally mate for life and both can fly a round trip of over 400km to get fish for their young. They can remain at sea up to 48 hours. On spotting fish from their aerial surveillance, the gannets enter a vertical dive with folded wings and if quick and accurate enough will emerge with their prey in their 9cm long bluish beaks and return with a predigested meal for their chicks.

The parents then swap places in the continual fishing expedition to ensure their offspring grow fit and strong for their own migration from around March or April of each year. At around 16 weeks, the chicks who have never flown previously, take on a massive maiden adventure, a 2,800 kilometre Tasman Sea crossing. Three to four years later, they return from Australia to undertake tentative mating. It’s not until they are five years old that they get serious about settling down and nesting and then spend much of their lives around coastal New Zealand.

Access includes a long walk from Clifton, quad bike or trail bike if the tide is right; by sea kayak or boat, or organised trips with commentary on tractor and trailer and overland by bus.

From Scotmans Point, in front of Hygge at Clifton Café, DOC suggests people set aside at least 5 hours for a comfortable return walk along the beach but only at low tide, starting no sooner than three hours after high tide and returning no later than 1.5 hours after low tide to avoid being stranded.

The 18km return journey affords spectacular views of stratified rock beds of gravels, conglomerate and mudstone carved into irregular shapes by sea, wind and storm.

There are two main commercial businesses, Gannet Safaris, operating overland from Summerlee Station since the 1970s with a strong clientele from visiting cruise ships, and Gannet Beach Adventures which unofficially started in the 1940s.

Organised trips to the gannets were sporadic for many years with locals acting as guides to take visiting families or groups to witness the birds in action. A Hastings Taxi firm took people out along the coast up until the 1931 earthquake which resulted in numerous slides, changing the terrain significantly.

Terrain takes toll

Gannet Beach Adventures initially used Model T Fords, old trucks and buggies to take people along the beach but the harsh terrain and corrosion took its toll on those vehicles. Tractors were introduced around 1969 with purpose-built trailers.

Lynette Boaler (nee Burden) recalled that in the summers of 1947 and 1948 her mother Jesse who ran Burden’s Motor Camp in Te Awanga, talked her into walking to the Cape to show campers and friends. “It was expected that I would do this two and sometimes three times a week. We would see little blue penguins at Black Reef. The gannets then only nested near the lighthouse.”

The light beacon on Cape Kidnappers, often referred to as a lighthouse, is right next to the gannet colony. It was first constructed in 1963, flashes every 15 seconds and is visible for eight nautical miles.

Mrs Boaler recalls one incident when it was feared the instability of the sheer cliffs of the Cape may have ended in tragedy. “Just beyond Clifton and before Rabbit Gully, a huge slip had come down. A truck got stuck so we were told to walk on over the slip which we all did. However, the great vibration of the vehicle motor and pulling on the truck to release it bought a great deal more of the cliff down.”

It appeared for a time that people had been buried on both sides of the slip and so the ambulance and fire brigade were called. “They sent a boat around from Clifton and with great surprise found everyone was still alive.”

While the Burden family had unofficially taken friends and guests from their Te Awanga Motor Camp to the gannets for decades, Gannet Beach Adventures didn’t officially become a business until 1952. “Back then it was just a family thing, really. We never anticipated it would some day become a money-making business. We didn’t have a license to carry passengers so we couldn’t charge anyone,” said Neil Burden.

When the company was celebrating 60-years in business he told Hawke’s Bay Today that initially the family just passed the hat around to cover costs. “Usually that meant passengers who had plenty of money gave nothing, while those who had nothing often gave something”.

Despite numerous offers to buy the company with its tractor and trailer transport he decided to keep it in the family, eventually selling it to nephew and Hastings District councilor Rod Heaps and wife Dayna. In 2008 Colin and Kim Lindsay bought the business. The tours which had begun with a single tractor and trailer now boasts eight casual staff and six tractors with a maximum number of 200 tourists per trip.

Rod Heaps and Neil Burden were still occasional drivers in 2018.

Overland gannets

In the 1970s visitor interest in seeing the gannets overland first took hold when the owners of Cape Kidnappers Station Farm partnered with the Hawke’s Bay Bus Company.

Transport was provided using ex-army trucks and Gannet Safaris Tours was born. In 1978, the company which became known as Hawke’s Bay Motor Company was struggling to make a profit before Andrew Neilson who farmed the land around the gannet colony took over the business.

From October 1979 he began ferrying visitors across his farm in a Landrover to visit the sanctuary. “I don’t want to be critical of the motor company, I think it did a good job but I believe I can make the safari pay by providing a more personal and comfortable service,” he said.

Gannet Safaris Overland began at his farm gate alongside the road to Clifton winding over 18km of farm road following the bed of an underground stream and then climbing steeply toward the coast and the headland at the edge of the peninsula to where the gannets nest in an open section of paddock overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The business has changed hands several times with more comfortable vehicles providing transport including large coaches or 10-seater mini-buses and 4-wheel drive luxury vehicles bus leaving from the entrance to Summerlee Station.

Source material: Regional Coastal Environment Plan (July 2008) which became operative on 8 November 2014 Adventure firm celebrates 60-years, HB Today, 13 November, 2012 Te Awanga Our Home, Burden Childhood Days, Burden Family, 2008, p. 80 DOC 2009 signage

The NZ Geographic Board announced the new name on Wednesday 29th August 2018.

Te Kauwae-a-Māui means 'The fish hook of Māui'.

In Māori mythology, Te Kauwae-a-Māui is the tip of the fishing hook that Māui used to pull up the North Island/Te Ika-a-Māui ('the fish of Māui').

This official name change is reflected in the Te Matau-a-Maui Art & Heritage Trail discovery marker post at Cape View Corner.

The Cape Coast Arts & Heritage Trust is delighted to announce that they have now commenced Stage Two of their "Te Matau-a-Maui Art & Heritage Trail" project, following the successful completion of Stage One: the installation of eight Marker Posts / Discovery Panels along the Landscapes Trail between Black Bridge, Haumoana and Clifton.

Funding for Stage Two has been kick-started by Tremains Real Estate, whose generosity and support has enabled the Trust to commission the first Landscape Artwork designed for the Trail, a collaboration between local artists Amy Lynch and Riks Terstappen.

The Cape Coast Arts & Heritage Trust reached a milestone on Friday 3rd August 2018 with the inauguration of its Foundation Project, the Te Matau a Maui Art & Heritage Trail.

A formal blessing was led by Tom Mulligan, Matahiwi Marae kaumatua, who, along with Hastings District Mayor Sandra Hazlehurst, formerly unveiled the first Marker Post / Discovery Panel installed along the Trail.

“It is a fact beyond contention, except by the bigot, that in wine-drinking countries the people are amongst the most sober, contented, and industrious on the face of the earth,” Romeo Bragato

The Clive Grange area was confirmed as an ideal location to promote wine making when international wine expert Romeo Bragato, on loan to the New Zealand Government, delivered his 1903 assessment of the country’s potential as a winemaking nation.

Spanish immigrant Anthony Joseph Vidal was the first winemaker to prove the case for coastal grape growing at Te Awanga, on the site today occupied by Clearview Estate Winery.

Vidal had arrived in the country from Barcelona, Spain, in 1888 aged 22-years, learning the craft through a 10-year wine making apprenticeship with his uncle, award winning vintner and industry pioneer Joseph Soler in Whanganui.

Vidal went out on his own from 1905, establishing vines and a winery in an old racing stables at Te Mata, Havelock North then expanding to Te Awanga from 1915, establishing himself as an early wine innovator.

Since those days, the Cape Coast has become one of Hawke’s Bay’s primary wine growing areas, with awards and medals regularly presented to boutique vineyards for a range of red and white varieties, that are sought after nationally and around the world.

The Cape Coast is particularly suited for classic white varieties, including the Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon produced by Clearview Estate, Elephant Hill, Beach House Wines and Te Awanga Estate. Grapes are also grown here for other prominent Hawke’s Bay wineries.

Wine experts have described the area as having a distinctive and healthy micro-climate that is suited to grape growing. It is ideal for relatively late ripening, with the sea breeze and constant air movement through the vineyards reducing the need for spraying and creating a quick drying environment after rain.

Warm days, cool nights and the relatively low risk of spring frost make it ideal for relatively small grapes with thick skins, which, in the hands of capable wine makers produce both white and red wines with considerable body and intensity of flavour.

Promising beginnings

Austrian-Hungarian Romeo Bragato trained as a winemaker in Italy and was appointed Government Viticulturist for Victoria, Australia in 1889. He was sent out on loan to the New Zealand Government in 1895.

The New Zealand Department of Agriculture wanted him to assess the broader prospects for wine making and he favourably recommended suitable regions, the creation of associations and the importing of disease resistant vines. He saw great promise in Wairarapa and Central Otago, but particularly Hawke’s Bay. He urged the government to help winemakers by setting up a viticulture college and experimental farms.

In 1903 Signor Bragato, recommend land be acquired either at Te Mata (Havelock North) or Clive Grange for a State Farm for Viticulture. “There is a probability of the latter estate being purchased by the Government for settlement purposes in which case a portion will be set aside for a farm,” reported the Manawatu Standard in August 1903.

But then the entire industry began to look shaky. Growers feared the temperance movement would persuade government to bring in legislation to their detriment. Some of the pioneering growers either pulled out or eased back severely on expansion plans. Nothing in Bragato’s report was acted upon.

Joseph Vidal, his wife Caroline and their children had arrived in Napier about 1892 where he initially established a wire manufacturing business and then a fish market before branching out into the grape growing business.

His three sons, who had all been trained in the wine business, took over Vidals on his death in May 1933. Les the eldest, a trained winemaker, returned from looking after family wine interests in South Australia, and Frank who was a chemist by trade began running the cellars and the blending and Cecil took over the offices and the business side.

The first person they employed on the death of their father was Joe Boaler who had extensive experience on the land.

Working the ground

Ida Bristow (nee Boaler) has clear memories of her father Joe’s involvement with Vidals Te Awanga vineyard dating back to 1933, when he first began work cultivating the 5 acre (2 ha) vineyard. “He told them he didn’t know the first thing about growing vines but he knew about cultivation and fencing."

Ida says her father was very meticulous about fencing. “I can still see it now at the end of one row the post had broken so they dug a hole and stuck another post in beside it and wired it together. There were three posts wired together. To my Dad that was not on because he knew fencing.” That was one of the first things he sorted out.

Then Les Vidal asked my father what he was doing going up and down the rows between the vines with a horse and scarifier (a kind of rake), pointing out there were no weeds to remove. He explained that if you cultivate the top layer then it’s much easier for the moisture to come up from below.

Ida recalls there was clearly a lot of work to do to get the vines and property tidied up and operating again on a commercial level at Havelock North and Te Awanga as things had become rundown.

Within a month of the Vidal boys returning to take over the business the Boaler family moved into an old rundown shed they gradually fixed up over the first year her father was managing the vineyard.

Boaler’s daughter-in-law Lynette (nee Burden) says the family didn’t have a telephone, “had no electricity, used white spirit lamps for lighting, a coal range for cooking and a copper to wash clothes in.”

Ida says although the power lines went along the shingle road through Te Awanga “old man Vidal wouldn’t pay for the two power poles needed to reach his property” which was set back from the road. One of the first things that happened when his sons took over was the power went on.

Ida says her father was always cultivating and scarifying. “They got such a good return from the land we finished up with 25 acres instead of 5 acres. While they had the same vines in the Havelock yard it didn’t give the same return as the liquid they got off at Te Awanga.

Joe Boaler initially used a mechanical sprayer which he walked behind with a single butt in the end that was only used during winter. “The sprayer my father came up with had three nozzles; two at ground level and one at the top so you only had to go down every other row.”

He remained managing the Vidals Te Awanga vineyard until he retired in 1966 by which time other family members had moved away to start their own lives. In 1979, New Zealand’s first winery restaurant, Vidal Estate Winery Restaurant, was opened at the original Havelock North winery site.

Wine resurgence

After a lull of several decades when local vineyards were left to deteriorate, Te Awanga, one of the first in Hawke’s Bay to have substantial plantings, experienced a resurgence in the 1980s when Te Mata Estate began sourcing fruit from the 1.6 hectare Cape Crest vineyard.

Clearview Wines, first established from 1989 by Tim Turvey and Helma van den Berg on the old Vidal's winery site, led the charge in restoring the reputation of the area for producing good wines by winning 10 medals and a trophy after operating for little over a year.

Co-owner Helma van den Berg said she and partner Tim Turvey had a vision to create an alfresco Mediterranean styled lunch restaurant where they would sell their own wines and the people would come.

"I think we have enduring passion and we have been doing it around 30 years and the same two people who had the idea are still running it everyday…We are grape growers, wine makers, event managers and restaurateurs and I think that is what makes it so exciting."

Against the odds

Winemaker Tim Turvey had been told in 1985 that the Te Awanga was “too cold to grow wine grapes". He went ahead with the purchase of the Clifton Rd property anyway, planting the first vines in the winter of 1988. His partner Helma van den Berg says there were plenty of naysayers claiming, “no-one will come out to that stony old beach”.

Turvey, said the area was chosen for its stony soil, with clay and loam sitting over deep beds of free draining river shingle. The climate offers an extended ripening period often well into autumn. The grapes ripened between two to three weeks earlier than in most other Hawke’s Bay vineyards and less spraying was needed because of the sea breeze.

In the early days of clearing the land and replanting the grapes Turvey discovered a fading ‘Vidals No 2 vineyard’ sign while mowing the front paddock. The Vidal family planted an olive tree which still grows near the restaurant and is the inspiration for Clearview’s award winning wine 'Old Olive Block'.

Tim and Helma went on to plant 2,500 trees, including avocados, olives, melia and bay trees, lavender and citrus. They expanded at a rate of about three acres a year (ha) acquiring adjacent properties, fencing, planting, training, grafting, pruning their own vines for many years.

They also designed and built the winery, adding to the cellar door and restaurant as the business grew.

The Clearview Estate 'Red Shed' Restaurant was opened in 1991 using materials salvaged from the old Napier railways' locomotive repair workshop and a dismantled Ford Motors garage from Hastings complete with three massive roller doors.

Clearview Estate grows 11 grape varieties from 19.4 hectares (48 acres) at Te Awanga vineyards where the vines are intensively managed and pruned for low yields of quality fruit. Leased land at Gimblett Road provides Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah.

The winery generally processes around 120-130 tonnes of grapes in a vintage, with its largest being around 180 tonnes. Clearview has achieved more than 100 gold medals and 5 star ratings and was recognised for delivering "exceptional" visitor experiences at the sixth annual Hawke's Bay Tourism Industry Awards taking out the Supreme Award as well as the Essence of Hawke's Bay Award.

Vineyard presence expands

The late 1990s had proved a popular period for the Hawke’s Bay region. Newcomers making a mark included Kim Crawford Wines boutique winery at Te Awanga which opened in October 1999. The vineyard established by Kim Crawford chairman Jim Scotland, Michael Hewitt and three other shareholders; was an alliance with Te Awanga Vineyards, which owned the Te Awanga Estate label. It later changed hands to Rod McDonald Wines although it’s still known as Te Awanga Estate.

Beach House Wines, a family owned boutique winery with vineyards in the Te Awanga and Gimblett Gravels regions, was established when Chris and Jill Harrison met while studying winemaking at Roseworthy College, Adelaide, Australia in 1991.

After working up vintages in France and New Zealand Chris worked for Montana and Jill for Grove Mill before the idea of developing their own brewery took hold. The couple got married in 1994 and moved to Hawke’s Bay where they started Roosters Brewhouse.

Chris’s parents Ralph and Philippa Harrison, moved from Pahiatua and purchased a property in Clifton Rd, Te Awanga where they planted Chardonnay, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc and Gewurztraminer in the stony ground not far from the beach.

In 1997 Chris and Jill bought their own grapes and made the first Beach House Wines at their brewery. In 2000 Ralph built the Beach House Cellar Door on his Te Awanga vineyard, opening in summer weekends from Labour weekend through until Easter for wine tastings.

In 1999 Chris & Jill moved to Mere Road on the Gimblett Gravels where they planted Merlot, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Montepulciano and Chardonnay and by 2008 had built their own state-of-the art wine making facility with the capacity to press 200 tonnes of grapes. Beach House Wines has won a myriad of medals and trophies as one of New Zealand’s most sought-after boutique winemakers.

Elephant Hill

After seven years planning, Elephant Hill, the latest arrival on the Cape Coast wine trail opened to the public on 24 November 2008 with principal owners Reydan and Roger Weiss from Germany and about 100 wine industry luminaries and officials welcomed by local kapa haka group Paerau.

The first major event at the winery was “an intimate evening with Jose Careras" in an exclusive New Zealand concert joined by the Vector Wellington Orchestra and guest soprano New Zealand’s Anna Leese on 31 January 2009 attended by 4800 people.

In August 2007, months before construction began, managing director Gunter Thies outlined the $40 million project. It took 1600 tonnes of concrete to construct three rooms capable of storing 500 barrels of wine.

It has an underground cellar with glass walls or partitions to form a function room and tasting area accessible from the upstairs restaurant. The cellar was “something of an older style technique used in Europe for hundreds of centuries.” Elephant Hill a jumbo $40m, HB Today, 11 August 2007

The first vines were planted in 2003 and the inaugural vintage started in 2006.

Andreas Weiss, the son of Roger and a former banker, joined the family business in September 2015, stepping up as CEO following his father’s passing in September 2016.

Elephant Hill owns 27ha at its original Te Awanga vineyard, 17ha in Gimblett Gravels, and leases an 18.7ha vineyard in Bridge Pa, specialising in Chardonnay and Syrah.

Resources: Photos courtesy Vidals and Helma van den Berg Jock Hewitt 11/ 11/ 2009 at http://www.hawkes-bay.co.nz/blog/te-awanga-haumoana/ Te Kauwhata: http://www.tekauwhatavillage.co.nz/welcome-to-te-kauwhata/romeo-bragato-visionary-for-the-nz-wine-industry/ Manawatu Standard, 18 August 1903 HB Digital Archives birth and Joseph Vidal’s death notice Te Awanga Our Home, Burden Childhood Days, Burden Family, 2008 Interviews with Joe Boaler’s daughter Ida Bristow 07 & 11-12-2017 Clearview win big at Tourism Awards, HB Today, 24 Aug, 2017 Te Awanga grapes impress, HB Today, 18 April 1994 Clearview: http://www.clearviewestate.co.nz/about-clearview-hawkes-bay-winery/history/ Boutique winery opens, HB Today, 16-10-99 Drinks Business: https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2017/09/corney-barrow-takes-on-nzs-elephant-hill/

Fred Bradshaw stretches back down the years to remember the families and the good times growing up in and around Haumoana.

Albert Bradshaw decided to move from Whakatu to Haumoana in the late 1920s after their doctor advised it would be best for the health of his Daisy who had developed asthma.

Albert had come to New Zealand from Staffordshire, England in 1911, called in at Napier on the way to Gisborne and decided to stay. Daisy Walters had emigrated from England with her parents and met and married Albert in Whakatu at the time the freezing works was being built.

Albert and Daisy Bradshaw, who started the store at Whakatu after WW1 moved to Haumoana for Daisy’s health

On Albert’s return from service in WW1, they built a general store opposite the Whakatu works. When their youngest Frederick (Fred) was born, they already had two children; Bob who was two years old and Ivan who was attending Napier Boys High School.

When Daisy developed asthma they were advised to sell up and move to the seaside; so they sold their store to a Mr Dillon and moved to Springfield Rd, Haumoana, to a house previously owned by either the Brownlee or Agnew family.

After clearing away the land around the house, which was overgrown with blackberry, they discovered an old tennis court. In later years’, says their son Fred, great use was made of that tennis court, with tennis balls at times having to be retrieved from the Haumoana lagoon. Its use as a roller skating rink was also an attraction for many of the locals.

Frederick Rawhiti Bradshaw, who was born in 1926, attended Haumoana School, became a radio officer on coastal cargo ships, married Hazel in 1950 and had two children, Mark and Julie. He became a “cropping farmer”, orchardist and later Apple and Pear Board manager.

Fred Bradshaw as cargo ship radio officer

Growing up, he recalls that across the Haumoana lagoon was the holiday home of the Armour family. Mr W.A. Armour, had been Headmaster of Napier Boys' High School in the 1920s, and was headmaster of Wellington College in the 1930s. They had six children; Alex, Allan, Marjorie, Alison, Frank and Jim.

Across the lagoon, he says,the Armours had a boat moored. “When they went back to Wellington they left it with us so we got pretty good at rowing.”

Late 1930s Bob Bradshaw, aged about 17-years, in the late 1930s with sail boat he won, testing its seaworthiness on the pond at Springfield Rd, Haumoana. Bob, who won the prize for developing “a lovely garden”, lost his life in WW2.

Immediate neighbours to the Bradshaws in Springfield Rd were the Gerrards, Dewsons and Keong families, and across the road a bach owned by Napier lawyer Victor Langley, his wife Amy, and daughters Audrey and Nola.

The Somervilles, with two daughters Cathie and Betty, had a small holding including an apple orchard. The father ‘Chum’ Sommerville worked on Clifton Station and he and Fred’s father Albert were mates from WW1.

There were two stores in the village, R. P. McCarthy provided a weekly delivery locally, and the original Post Office store was run by Mrs Bambry for much of its life and later Vin Morris.

An infrequent bus service was run to Hastings, and a Friday night service into town was well patronised by locals.

“Sunday was observed strictly in our family, that was God's day and we went to Sunday School and later Bible class, Mr R.H. Florence was the stalwart of that group, the church was shared between the Church of England and the Presbyterians,” said Fred.

School holiday jobs

Every boy in the area was after jobs in the school holiday, and in the 1930s Fred got his sitting on the front of Derek van Asch’s combine harvester which he had engineered to be a self-propelled threshing mill.

Fred’s job was using a pitch fork to make sure the rye grass fed on to the pickup correctly.

“I got a great thrill when he showed me how to drive a brand-new Allis-Chalmers model B tractor and left me to mow several paddocks of ripe grass seed (when) I was about 14.

Ivan Bradshaw, Fred's brother, trying out the new tractor, a diesel-powered Ferguson during potato-growing era, 1950-1960s

His older brother Ivan ended up working at Craggy Range station. “I used to bike up the Tukituki Road to Craggy Range, sometimes stayed with them, it was wonderful as a horse would be provided and I could accompany Ivan on jobs around the station. It was a big place of several thousand acres, I remember one paddock being named the drome because Piet van Asch, (who later founded Aerial Mapping) would land his plane there.

Alf Phillips was a contractor with a hay baler and another jobs boys vied for was tying the wire bound bales.

Pilcher’s steam driven stationary mill which farmers used for threshing rye grass also created a few jobs.

During the longer summer holidays of the early 1940s, luxuries were out and people tried anyway they could “to earn a few bob”. The occasional work came up with Mr Greening picking tomatoes in his glasshouses.

Fred recalls in his teenage years camping out at Cape Kidnappers overnight. “We would bike along the beach when the tide was fairly well out. “At that stage the Cape was very rat infested and keeping your food intact was quite an operation, sometimes we would try fishing or going out on Black Reef looking for sea eggs. You had to be very mindful of the state of the tide when you were on the low-lying rocks.

Sources: Memories of Haumoana life the late 1920s, F.R Bradshaw, interviewed for Hawke’s Bay Knowledge Bank, edited by Keith Newman

Photos from the F. R Bradshaw collection

The earthquake, air raid practice, nit inspection, picnics, blackberry burglars, fires, the ‘murder house’, six of the best and an ever expanding school… The late Jack Butcher had firm recollections of “the day that changed the world” when the Hawke’s Bay earthquake struck on 3 February 1931, the third day of the new term at Haumoana School. He and his friends were sitting on the benches outside one of the classrooms eating play lunch when the quake “let loose and the ground jumped like a rough sea.” In that instant, the new headmaster Mr Florence walked in the school gate and all the kids ran toward him in panic. “Then down came two chimneys across the seats we’d just been sitting on. We just got clear and the smashed the trestles to smithereens.”

Jack, aged 98-years when interviewed, always wondered what would have happened if Mr Florence hadn’t turned up when he did. “Most of the kids just wanted their mothers,” recalled Mr Butcher.

During the years of World War 2, the threat of a Japanese air raid was very real for the pupils of Haumoana School; all pupils had to wear a wooden tag around their necks with their name ‘poker worked’ into it and air raid practices were part of the routine. “We were warned by the school bell and then commanded by a series of whistles…one blast and everyone was to fall on the ground and two it was up and run again,” recalls former pupil and Cape Coast identity Maureen Heaps

First the children had to hide in “the pine hedge” bordering the playing fields and then head for the far corner boundary post. “From there we moved swiftly, diagonally across open paddock on Georgetti’s farm (later Neilsons) to a dense pine plantation under which we walked to our intended destination of gum and wattle trees on McNiven’s farm,” she said.

“The ground cover was nice and soft, but as we could see the sky through the lighter foliage, I figured the plane crew would be able to see us and thought we would be safer under denser pine trees.”

On one occasion parents were invited to come and see the air raid practice in action. “How on earth Mum was going to get to the school three miles away and in the day, I wondered. I had never seen Mum ride a bike before but to my amazement that is exactly what she did. Of course, she had ridden a push bike to work for many years before getting married but we children had never seen her on one.”

The school was closed for weeks at a time during three periods, 1925, 1936 and 1947 through what was term ‘infantile paralysis’ better known as polio (poliomyelitis), an acute and sometimes crippling contagious viral disease.

Haumoana School, 1940

Heroes strapped After the war, Margaret Harrison (nee McKeesick) recalls a near disaster being averted when a pile of burning rubbish caught on to the trees near the school house. Frantic efforts by the senior pupils prevented ‘Cocky’s’ (headmaster Mr Cockerill’s) garage; housing his boat, car, petrol and hobby machines and material, from going up in flames. “During this heroic effort, a considerable number of raspberries disappeared from nearby bushes. The result – every child who had helped was strapped and lectured severely. A very sore reward indeed.”

Jean Hantler (nee McKeesick) recalled the girls singing the commercial “Sunlight Soap is the Best in the World” in the strictly girls only shelter. In the mid-1940s “when the Hokey Tokey first came to the country Mr Cockerill banned it as ‘putting your backside in’ was considered too rude for his school.

In 1950 the Te Awanga Private School joined Haumoana school bringing the school to a point of capacity. In November 1952 with 52 children in the infant room (first year pupils), work began on a fourth classroom. In the interim the Haumoana Hall was used as a classroom. When the student returned to school there were four classrooms, four teachers, a new learners swimming pool and manual training was about to begin for both boys and girls.

The District Health Nurse used to come out and check children’s heads to see they had nits. If the answer was positive that child would be given special shampoo and told not to return to school for a fortnight.

At the end of the Haumoana School year a picnic was held in the reserve by the old Black Bridge with the Lombardi poplars providing shade. Maureen Heaps recalls prizes for different sports activities being given on the day along with swimming and school awards. Kerosene can cordial Wearing hats was a must and hot days meant long queues awaiting cordial served from the former four gallon kerosene cans also used by the school to serve milk. Later in the day, because of the heat, the demand became considerable and water was the only option to quench the thirst. The replacement Black Bridge now takes up much of the area where the old reserve was located.

A big storm bought down many of the trees in the school grounds and for safety reasons the rest were cut down shortly after. By 1961 there were five classrooms, a new staffroom and cloakrooms and in 1962 a Volley wall was erected with children paying 2 shillings per concrete block with their initials painted on each. It was declared unsafe in 1983 and rebuilt with donations from families and former pupils.

Haumoana School Jubilee Committee, 1960

The school got its first dental clinic and nurse in 1963 and the following year the King Carnival at Haumoana Memorial Park, the precursor to the Haumoana Market Day, raised over £4600. Rusty Steevens was crowned King from finalists John Gordon, Darky Unahi and Roy Birch.

Part of the fundraising was used to build the school swimming pool and the rest was supplemented by the Education Department to build a library. Fundraising by students, Maori displays, a speech competition and a hangi, helped stock the new library when it opened in 1966. By 1970 the school roll was 274 with eight teachers on staff, Mrs Rere (Rereokapuni) Unahi had been elected as the first Maori and woman to be chairman of the school committee.

Haumoana Teachers, 1970: Ray Moriarty, Judy Osborne, Violet Robon, Marcia Derry, Bill Ussher, Jacqui Ussher, Darcy Clausen and principal Mr Lee and his wife.

The school had a new heating system with a central boiler system, new swimming baths were completed, swimming sports were held for the first time, and at the end of year ceremonies were now held on the tennis courts instead of Haumoana Hall.

Maori group excels Sports teams were performing well in the region and the Maori group under the guidance of Mrs Unahi and Mrs Tauroa had joined Hastings entertainers for the Governor-General’s visit and later performed with distinction at the Maori Festival at the Municipal Theatre. The school celebrated its 50th Jubilee in 1971.

Mrs Unahi was the driving force in getting a dedicated school bus to bring the children along the coast to school. Up until this time some pupils were dropped off by parent’s vehicles or from the 1950s caught a New Zealand Rail workers bus for part of the journey. The committee wrote to the Education Board several times without response so Mrs Unahi went to their Napier offices and was told they’d received no such request, despite the committee having copies of the letters.

Her husband, local kaumatua Darky (Mick) Unahi says she was a determined woman with eight school teachers in her family who took decisive action.

Darky (Mick) Unahi

She arranged accommodation at a Naenae marae through her brother who had an influential position in Government finance, then took a class of Haumoana School pupils on the train to Wellington to Parliament. “Due to her discussions, she was told they would have a bus the following year.”

A postal ballot was held to determine whether Form 1& 2 students should attend Havelock North Intermediate in 1976. This was agreed to and in February 1976 the school re-opened with a reduced roll of 154 students.

The Education Board continued to upgrade the classrooms and facilities. In 1981 Mrs Rere Unahi retired after 16-years on the school committee, 12-years as chairperson.

Uniforms and technology By 1988 plans to remodel or replace rooms 1-4 were finalised with two classes transferred to Memorial park Hall for term one until work was completed. The first board of trustees was elected with Lloyd McGhie as chairman and by July staff and pupils had settled into the new classrooms.

In the 1990s school uniforms were revived and a 75th Jubilee with former pupils, staff and parents attending.

Moira Lindsay, who retired in 2016 after 30-years as school secretary says some of the fragile old school registers remained valuable for many years. For example, an older Maori person who was required to prove he had been registered at the school under an English form of his name, and another in the 1970s who’s employer wanted evidence of his schooling.

The biggest shift she participated in was changing to decimal currency in 1967, the introduction of boards of trustees and the transition from pen and paper and formatted books to different computer systems, including Xero software for accounting and administration.

Sources: Te Awanga Our Home, Burden Childhood Days, Burden Family, 2008, P.11 Interview with Moira Lindsay Haumoana School newsletters Photographs: Haumoana School; Archives

School staff 1970 - Maurice Smith Photography

The Haumoana, Te Awanga and Tuki Tuki Volunteer Fire Brigade was formed in 1946 with about 20 members using bucket pumps, beaters, a home-made gear pump to draw water from creeks, and a model T truck.

A quarter of a century later, in 1971, five of the original members were presented with their 25-year gold stars, in March 2014, another five got gold stars in an event attended by two of the surviving founding members, Hugh Baker and Ian Bambry and by 2017, 15 members had served at least 25-years.

In 1996 the Haumoana brigade was approached by the regional manager of St John Ambulance, looking for some assistance as it wasn’t able to turn out to emergencies within the expected 15 minute timeframe.

“We were asked whether we would be interested in upskilling in first aid and helping our community. We didn’t even hesitate,” said former station manager, the late Bill Tims when interviewed in 2015.

“They trained us, and we were one of the first brigades in New Zealand to sign a memorandum of understanding with St John. We’ve never looked back.” The brigade won a chief executive’s award for that.

In August 2013, the Haumoana Fire Brigade was presented with the 2012 Emergency Management Qualification (EMQUAL) Training Excellence Award having achieved the highest level of training in New Zealand.

Bill Tims, had been with the brigade for 40-years, 20 of those as Haumoana fire chief, before his tragic death, when he and his wife were hit by a motorcycle in San Francisco in August 2016.

Former Haumoana Volunteer Fire Brigade chief Bill Tims

He said one of the great assets of the brigade was the loyalty of members and the community. Generally, he said, people join the brigade to give back to the community.

What other motive could there be than the sense of adrenaline and adventure that comes with answering the pager and the howl of the siren which often means downing one set of tools and heading to the station to pick up another.

“I always remember as young fellow, when I joined the Haumoana brigade, someone said to me, you are going to see some funny things but make sure that it stops at the eye before it gets into your brain’.”

Tims said he had witnessed people with severe burns, strokes, cot deaths, heart attacks and those killed or battered about in car accidents. “The thing is you are there to do the best you can possibly do in the situation. It’ll still play on your mind but you can’t take it on personally…you can only do what you can do.”

Back to the beginning

From the earliest days of Te Awanga and Haumoana, if a fire got out of hand it was every man for himself with help from neighbours but beyond a certain point there was no other option but to step back and let it burn.

In May 1926, Mrs L W. Williams two-storey, 20-room hostel on the beach at Clive Grange, was completely destroyed by fire. “No fire brigade was available to check it.”

Concerns about how locals could rally around to protect each other were further raised when one of the largest houses on the western side of Te Awanga owned by Mr and Mrs J., D. Glenny was reduced to ashes on 22 November 1943.

In the fields of the same property in 1946 a large grass fire got out of control after school boys had been playing with matches. According to Maureen Heaps the boys had set fire to duck feathers among the dry grass while walking to the lake behind the homestead. Local identity Neil Burdon later admitted to being one of the culprits.

The flames were whipped up by the sea breeze and fanned into a grass fire which was so extensive it destroyed the pasture and threatened surrounding farms. Every able-bodied person from Haumoana, Te Awanga and the Tukituki valley rallied around with wet sacks and whatever was available.

Mrs Heaps says it was a massive community effort with helpers arriving home exhausted and black from head to foot.

The Haumoana, Te Awanga, Tuki Tuki Volunteer Fire Brigade, was formed on Saturday 1 June 1946 by those who fought the grassfire; Jim Glenny, Derek van Asch and Eric Haggerty, and other locals.

It came under the control of a fire board of two representatives from each of the areas: R. P. McCarthy as chairman and T. Emmerson secretary from Haumoana; Jim Glenny and Derek van Asch for Te Awanga and C.H. Baker and A. Manning representing Tuki Tuki.

The Haumoana Fire Brigade, 1940

The brigade had one unit at Haumoana and another at Te Awanga. The Te Awanga group had a small portable gear pump driven by a small petrol motor, fitted with a hose reel containing a water gland engineered by Derek van Asch mounted on the back of Eric Haggerty’s truck.

This was particularly effective where water was limited and had to be drawn from wells and creeks.

The Haumoana group had bucket pumps and beaters that were kept in a storeroom next to the kitchen in the Haumoana Hall. On most occasions it was picked up on the way to a call by Gordon Bambry in his Model T truck. Members wore emergency WW1 fire service uniforms with armbands and tin helmets.

The first “official” call out came on 27 November 1946 to a grass fire which threatened the property of a Mrs Bark in Grange Rd which was quickly bought under control.

The Hawke’s Bay County Council directed the Haumoana Brigade until 1951 when it was taken over by Hastings Fire Board as part of the Hastings extra urban fire authority, which included Havelock North. The Hastings Fire Brigade was the first urban fire authority in New Zealand.

The original call out system was by siren; a hand operated one on top of an old cream separator in Te Awanga and another mounted on the roof of the Haumoana Post Office and electrically operated by the postmistress, Mrs Bambry.

The Brigade recorded only minor fires such as grass, tree stumps and motor vehicle accidents in its early years.

A tree milled from Clifton Station was used to build the brigades headquarters and house the ‘fire engine’ beside the Haumoana Hall, later moving to the rear of the present day fire station in Beach Road.

Station established

In 1947, the manager of Clifton Station, Alex Law, donated pine trees for timber to build the first fire station at Haumoana. Brigade members felled the tree and foundation members Ian and Gordon Bambry of Bambry Transport supplied Austin Trucks to cart the trees to mills in Hastings and along the Tuki Tuki river.

Donated logs from Clifton Station

The original 20ft by 30ft station was built by the 12 volunteer brigade members in 1949, on a site adjacent to the Haumoana Hall offered by the Haumoana Beach Improvement Society. Construction took about 10 months and was paid for by the Hawke’s Bay County Council.

It was moved around the mid-1970s to its present at Beach Rd site and initially used as a storage shed housing the first water tanker until a tanker bay was added.

Leading the way

Early in 1951, a trailer-mounted Gwynne pump capable of 19 litres per second was acquired though the NZ Fire Service Council. It was powered by a Standard 10 car motor and taken to call outs by the first brigade member who turned up with a tow bar on his car.

Later in the year, a 1948 Landrover was provided with brigade members enhancing it with fire extinguishers, bucket pumps and a ladder as the first appliance of its type in New Zealand at a cost of £600. The trailer carried the hoses but had no water tank, relying on water supplies near the fire.

According to Haumoana Fire Brigade historians, “being an open top, the Landrover was mighty cold going to calls on a frosty morning.” In 2017 the appliance was in private ownership and still in good working condition.

The original fire station was little more than a glorified shed and to meet with changing requirements new premises were desperately needed.

In 1954, a section backing onto Memorial Park was purchased for the Haumoana Brigade from the Crown for ₤275.

Brigade members borrowed trucks and earth moving equipment to cart 220 yards of fill and level the site. The only cost to the Fire Board was the 38 gallons of petrol used.

On 19 December 1955, as part of a loan approved for Hastings staff housing, ₤2437 was earmarked for the member-built Haumoana station.

Construction began in January 1957 and the 70ft by 30ft building, was finished a few weeks before the official opening.

The Haumoana Fire Station in the 1970s flood.

Haumoana’s second fire station, a one-bay building with a social hall, conceived, designed and planned by chief fire officer L R G 'Tiger' Harlen was officially opened on 15 February 1958 by the chairman of the NZ Fire Service Council, Mr S. Dean.

The local community donated $1200 to equip the station with facilities and amenities for the 15-man brigade.

Quake and appliance upgrade

In 2010 the NZ Fire Service invested $450,000 on quake strengthening the Haumoana Fire Station.

The appliance bays were also enlarged to house a shiny new $400,000 new 2010 Iveco Eurocargo engine

Over 60 current and past brigade volunteers, honorary life members, fire service leaders, and dignitaries celebrated the re-opening, including foundation members, Hugh Baker and Ian Bambry.

Haumoana Volunteer Fire Brigade, 2013

On average, the brigade receives three calls a week or 110-150 calls a year. It could be anything from a house fire to flooding, a cat up a tree or someone falling off a roof.

About 35-40 percent of call outs are medical related. The weirdest? Having to use a jigsaw to cut up a plastic bath after a two-year-old got his finger stuck down the plughole.

There are neighbouring brigades in Havelock North, Hastings and Napier which still leaves Haumoana to cover quite a substantial area including Clive, Haumoana, Te Awanga and Tuki Tuki Valley.

Sources: Articles in The Evening Post, 24 March 1926 and Hawke’s Bay Herald Tribune, 28 November 1946 Maureen Heaps typewritten and handwritten notes. More than wet stuff on the hot stuff, Keith Newman, FireNZ magazine Haumoana Fire Brigade website: http://www.ufba.org.nz/brigade/haumoana_volunteer_fire_brigade/page/469 Interview with Bill Tims and Brian Slader

Fred Butcher and his wife Mabel (nee Sommerville) were told by Dr Reeves in Havelock North that because of the weakness in their infant son Jack’s lungs, they should move to Haumoana if they wanted him to survive into adulthood.

Jack Butcher, who turned 99-years in 2017, was the oldest resident in Haumoana and glad his parents followed the doctor’s advice, believing “the ozone wind…the pure wind off the sea” made all the difference.

Rumours persist that the Cape Coast; where ozone charged breezes vitalise the atmosphere in the mornings and the setting sun reflects shades of red across the windswept cloudy sky on lazy evenings, is among the healthiest places on the planet The Pacific Ocean, unobstructed for endless empty nautical miles to the coast of Argentina, charges the atmosphere as it licks and at times batters itself against the stony east coast beach aptly named Haumoana, the breath of the ocean or sea breeze. Perhaps the longevity and health of some of its residents adds credence to the claims of an “elixir vitae (elixir of life) for which the district is renowned,” according to the Hawke’s Bay Daily Telegraph in July 1961.

The claim persisted that Haumoana was one of two places in the world where seven air streams met, the other being Rio de Janiero. It was allegedly this convergence of air currents which weave clouds into endless patterns, sea breezes and the smash of the ocean on the stony beachfront, bought health to Haumoana residents. In today’s terms perhaps the Cape Coast is ‘a blue zone’, a term coined by National Geographic where people tend to live the longest and healthiest lives, places where people have struck a healthy balance between modern lifestyle and technology and healthy happy living. The Butcher family moved from Otane to Grove Rd originally, when most of the local homes were holiday baches and people flocked to the domain by the river in summer to fish and swim. Young Jack aged 6-years attended Clive Grange School (later named Haumoana School) at a time when the Tukituki and Cape Coast area was being cut up into smaller lots.

His father, a fencing contractor and shearer worked on the large Gordon and Neilson properties and helped put up the fences and plant grapes at the pioneering Vidals vineyard.

Butcher beginnings

In 1878 John and Lavina Butcher, aged 32 and 33 respectively, left Gloucestershire where they were born and had married. to sail across the world to Napier, New Zealand. They boarded the Bebbington with their four young children, John, Mary-Ann (Polly), Henry and Elizabeth.

The decision was made to move to Takapua where sawmills and flaxmills were operating and the Napier-Takapau railway was almost completed. The family lived in the township for about 25-years, where John was employed by the Railway Department as a platemaker, adding Fred, Emily, George, Eva and William to their number.

With the older children now married, John and Lavina moved to Havelock North where their son Fred married Mabel Sommerville, moved in next door and started a family. Fred and some of his brothers took on fencing and shearing work around the district, and when Havelock North established its own sewage system, Fred and his brother Bill became sewage inspectors, testing the pipes by fanning smoke into them with sacks to look for leaks.

Fred and his brothers had a strong interest in sports, especially football (rugby) and boxing. The next move for Fred was to Haumoana where the shearing work continued. After five years Fred and Mable took over a small dairy farm backing on to the Tuki Tuki river with their children Lewis, Peter, Ossie, Jack and daughter Mary. Jack Butcher who was engaged in shearing and crutching around the Haumoana and Tukituki area, met his future wife Joyce Hawkins at one of the regular dances at the Haumoana Hall.

Around 1946 the couple moved back to Haumoana, having built a small cottage on the Haumoana-Te Awanga Rd, and handing the farm over to youngest son Jack.

Jack Butcher who was engaged in shearing and crutching around the Haumoana and Tukituki area, met his future wife Joyce Hawkins at one of the regular dances at the Haumoana Hall.

Jack’s maternal grandfather, John Sommerville, was the first manager at Clifton Station. His daughter Mabel Sommerville grew up at Clifton Station in the manager’s home at Haupouri, on the southern side of Cape Kidnappers, where the sheep yards were. Fred lived in Haumoana until he died aged 81-years.

Sources:

Notes from family memories written by Bill Growcott Senior and Peter Butcher provided with comments by Delwyn Hall (nee Butcher)

The Haumoana School is at the centre of the Cape Coast community, not only because it’s a well-regarded high decile primary school but because its elevated position makes it the designated safe place in during flooding, inundation and other civil emergencies.

Land was donated by a local farmer for what was originally known as Clive Grange School, at the corner of Parkhill and Raymond Rd, which opened on 4 April 1921, with two classrooms and about 40 pupils. At its Golden Jubilee in 1971, Haumoana School had a headmaster, nine teachers, a dental nurse, an assistant and a roll of 280 children. The school motto remains: “Honour and effort lead to success” with many children among the 176 on the 2017 roll now from third and fourth generation families.

“This is our place…our turangawaewae…everyone belongs here,” says Moira Lindsay, who served 30-years as an office administrator at the school, eventually retiring in 2016.

The Education Review Board in Feb 2016 commended the school for its focus on improving outcomes for all students, its high-quality systems to support student needs and a curriculum that fosters student’s ability to “confidently take responsibility for their learning”.

The school is an Enviro-School, involved in the Cape to City project and the Garden to Table programme with the school’s vision of “Think Challenge Achieve apparent through the school,” says the Review Board.

Humble beginnings

Initially pupils from Haumoana, Te Awanga and the Tukituki valley attended Clive School but local residents wanted their children taught closer to home.

In 1914 the Education Board threatened to stop the coach service carrying local children to Clive for, unless the Clive School Committee agreed to pay a share of the losses. That was finally agreed and by June 20 of the 32 children “allegedly of school age” were using the coach.

The Clive Grange Education Committee began lobbying for their own school. By June 1919 there were 90 children in the Grange area, 64 of them of school age but the bus to Clive could only seat 25. A site at Park Hill was set aside as an education reserve and a petition called on the Education Board to establish a school there.

When it first opened in 1921 the headmaster was Mr E. (Ned) Webster with assistant Miss Iggleton. Mr Webster cycled up to the school each day from the beachfront. A headmaster’s residence was established in 1923 by which time the school had a roll of 60 pupils.

Access to the school was mainly by foot, pushbike or horse, those who chose horseback could graze their animals in the horse paddock where the present-day kindergarten is located. Children went off to sports and other events on the back of a pick-up truck. The school library was established with books donated from private homes and in 1924 the first piano was purchased. A replacement arrived in 1928 and was still being used 60-years later despite having at one time fallen from the back of a truck.

Mr R. Florence became the second headmaster in 1927 and under his guidance Clive Grange School became a three-teacher school. In 1928 the school won the first in a long succession of awards from Hawke’s Bay Education Board award for being the most attractive school in the district.

Award winning grounds

Mr W.S Cockerill was headmaster from 1932 until the early 1940s. A third classroom was completed, the first school ball held and he began setting out the school grounds, placing marble slabs in the driveway, making trellises, rustic fences and carving an archway out of redwood at the entrance.

In 1935 the name was changed from Clive Grange to Haumoana School to avoid confusion with Clive School. After Mr Cockerill, Mr A. O Sim was headmaster for two years followed by Jack Izatt, F.H Bacon and D.H. Lee.

In 1936 a log cabin was built in the school grounds which became the domain of the boys. The girls already had a shelter for their playground entertainment. In 1947 the log cabin, having been such a popular place, was rebuilt along with a ‘Bridge of Peace’ in the school grounds. A collaboration of student memories from the Haumoana School 75th Jubilee magazine describe the sports grounds as lined with gum and pine trees; magpies attacking those who got too near the big gums at the wrong time of year, boys amusing themselves endlessly at playtime, building elaborate huts from fallen branches and pine needles with passageways between them.

The horses that many pupils rode to school once escaped from the horse paddock into the school grounds. One of the tasks senior pupils did not look forward to, was cleaning the lavatories by removing and burying the content every Friday. Maureen Heaps (nee Burdon) and two of her siblings from Te Awanga often took turns sharing one bike to get to school and in the winter, carrying milk in a billy on the handlebars from Palleson’s farm. The milk was for the cocoa that would be prepared in four-gallon kerosene tins, with each pupil having their own mug, stored in the rack of pigeon holes in the front of the school building.

Maureen reminisces in the Haumoana School 75th Jubilee magazine, of the New Zealand flag being run up the flagpole every morning to the chorus of God Defend New Zealand; “the dread fear of mental arithmetic tests”, with the threat of the strap “if the mark was less than five out of ten”. She recalled marble players using the grooved circles in the packed down dirt of the bike sheds, the well swept hard dirt floors of the old log cabin; the floor marked out into different ‘rooms’ or houses with status gauged by the number of coloured bottles of water lined up.

Watch for Part Two: Haumoana School history: Surviving earth quakes and war (1930s to 1970s)

Sources: Photographs: Haumoana School; Archives Education Review results: http://www.ero.govt.nz/review-reports/haumoana-school-16-02-2016/ 13 June 1914, letter J H Heron, Clive in Hastings Standard Demand for a school, Hastings Standard, 13 June 1919 School has been at Haumoana 50 years, The Daily Telegraph, Say Feb 20, 1971 Interview with Moira Lindsay

The Haumoana Basketball Club which had its origins as a social club in 1945, celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1995 when it was wondered, whether those original players could ever have imagined the hundreds of others would have a chance to play for the team over the following decades.

The meeting to form the club was held in the Haumoana Hall on Tuesday 7 May, 1946 but the teams were too late to enter into club matches that year so it was decided to ask various teams around the district for friendly matches.

It wrote to the secretary of the Haumoana Beach Improvement Society for the use of the picnic ground at Black Bridge and to ask for the release of funds from the Haumoana Football Club which were held in its account. The girls all agreed to bring threepence to each club night to pay for the lights in the hall. Lorraine Lindsay (Emmerson) who was elected to the committee that night, went on to become the Haumoana coach through until the name change to Haumoana Netball Club in 1969.

Over the years the club fielded two or three teams a season as part of the Hastings Association and often went around the country playing in Masterton, Gisborne, Stratford, Wanganui and elsewhere.

In a report on the 50th jubilee, attended by ex-players from throughout New Zealand and Australia, former club member Delwynne Cameron said Haumoana never trialled its players and it still doesn’t. “Whoever turns up gets a game…It has remarkably few coaches — seven only, and many original players now have daughters and granddaughters who play. It has always been like a family…In fact the history of the club is a bit like the history of Haumoana,” she said.

Prior to establishing their own hard court players had to take a bus from Haumoana to Hastings depot and then walk to Ebbett Park.

They bought home many wins and always impressed in their smart “uniforms of grey skirts, white blouses, red cardigans, black blazers and black shoes”

Hawke’s Bay County councillor, Mr. J. Tucker, had declared the new basketball courts at Haumoana open in July 1961. The club had been saving and planning for its new hard court which was achieved with the help of the Haumoana Progressive Association, the Park Committee and the county riding member, Mr. Tucker.

It was one of the few clubs in the village that had not gone into recess at some stage. It was hoped the Basketball Association would class the new courts as “home” courts so the local club could make full use of them and not have to travel to Hastings every Saturday.

The original 1946 Haumoana Basketball Club: Back row: L. Scott; L. Lindsay, J. Krebs, M. Kirk, D. Castles. Front row: R. Twort, I. Bowler, P. O’Brien and J. McKeesick. Note the willows at the park end where the second Black Bridge was eventually land to provide better access to the Cape Coast.

Haumoana Basketball team 1960: Back row: V. Hatherall, W. Kean, B. Preston, S. Haycock, Front row: L. Townsend, G McDonald, M. Hatherall, R. Earle.

The Haumoana A Team on opening day July 1961: Back row: Dale Osborne, Violet Hatherall, Hazel McLeod, Roslyne Earl, Joan Grogan, Lorraine Emmerson (coach). Front row: Gay McDonald, Gillian Oliver, Lynne Townsend and Shirley Haycock (captain).

Life members 1990 reunion: Back row: Ruby Birth, Neta Manning, Beth Townsend, Delwynne Cameron, Joyce Butcher, Barbara Jensen, Middle row: Lorraine Emmerson, Rosemary Stanley. Front row: Shirley Randell, Lynne Townsend and Rosalynne Wilson.

Sources: Hawke’s Bay Photo News, The Hawke's Bay Publishing Company Ltd, July 1961, p.45, Hawke’s Bay Knowledge Bank Haumoana Netball Club to celebrate 50 years, The Dominion, July 1995 Notes and scrapbook Delwynne Hall (nee Butcher)

New postal service and controversial name

The area south of the Tukituki river mouth was still called Clive Grange until 1913 when the Post Office presumed to impose a new name that annoyed many locals.

According to the Hastings Standard on 20 March 1913, the New Zealand Post Office decided it would “adopt the more euphonical Maori appellation” calling the area Tahumoana (seaside). The decision came just ahead of connecting a telephone line and opening the first Post Office, which was part of the general store in Grange Rd which opened on 21 April.

However, locals, then as now, objected to being told what to name their evolving coastal village and rejected the new name. On 10 June, New Zealand Post agreed, with the urging of influential locals, on the name Haumoana, meaning sea breeze, although it could also imply breath, wind or vitality of the ocean.

Originally the post office was simply a counter at the back of Estall’s general store along Grange Rd. The first postmaster was Harry Taylor. The building was badly damaged by fire in 24 February 1926 and rebuilt. From 1923-1953 a rural delivery was in place for Tukituki, Te Awanga and Clifton and run from the post shop each daily with Taylor holding the contract from 1925-1927.

The Post Office had moved to the new general store opposite the present-day fire station in Beach Rd by the 1940s with one of two fire sirens for the newly formed fire brigade mounted on the roof and electrically operated by then postmistress, Mrs Bambry.

With the growth in the number of beach residences in the 1960s the general store-post office proved inadequate. At Christmas, there used to be long queues of people picking up and delivering parcels because there was no postie. Things improved when the dirt track was finally paved to make it easier for people to get to the store.

The new building on Beach Rd, today a private residence, only came about after the local branch of the Country Women’s Institute, formed in 1930 as the Women’s Institute, canvassed the village with a petition asking for support. CWI members had a function to celebrate and provided afternoon tea when Sir Richard Harrison came to officially open it on 18 August 1969. CWI newsletter 30-09-1981

The 990 square foot (301 sqm) building of brick veneer was erected by Mr J. L Jones. The first post mistress was Mrs Pat McGoverin who had been a postal clerk in the store. Local postal delivery began in October 1969. Julian Driver was the first postie.

Sources: Hastings Standard, 20 March 1913 From the Bay to the Bush, the Postal History of Hawke’s Bay, Bruce Marshall and Robin Startup, HB Philatelic Society, 1984, p136 Interview with Moira Lindsay

Images: NZ Stamp Collectors and Auckland Weekly News, Thursday May 12, 1918 (so no, it’s not really Haumoana postal delivery!)

‘Old faithful’ Black Bridge replaced - only standing by ‘force of habit’ (1207)

The tendency for the Tuktituki river to carve itself another channel remained a constant source of concern, with the Hawke’s Bay County engineer fearing in 1904 that it was about to change course and flow to the south of the Black Bridge rather than under it.

Protective measures costing £800 were ordered, again stirring up controversy with some ratepayers, suggesting this protected private property, namely Grange Estate. The council insisted it was necessary to protect the south end of the bridge. Barnes & MacErlich, Clive, pp. 45-47 Haumoana, Te Awanga and Clifton beaches were attracting larger numbers of Napier and Hastings people as a weekend playground and the frustration of longer queues, waiting for bottlenecks to clear, saw patience grow thinner.

By 1936, the bridge was clearly past its use by date; the decking was slippery and dangerous for horses and cattle and while sand was still spread across it, the constant flow of motor vehicles quickly dispersed this coating. Local ratepayers and residents began lobbying for a new bridge, to ease access to 35,000 acres (14,164 ha) of rich productive land and the growing popularity of the seaside areas.

The evolving coastal villages now embraced smaller cultivated holdings, seaside batches and the Tukituki Branch of the Farmers’ Union was now speaking out for the small farmer.

Farmers feared the bridge would collapse, leaving them isolated with no way of getting their produce to market. They pointed out that the 5-ton weight limit presented a serious issue for those needing to use heavy agricultural machinery.

The bus company considered asking their passengers to walk across to another bus and the school bus did exactly that, asking children to get out and walk.

Flooding in parts of Haumoana was quite common before the flood banks were finished. In the big floods, the river lapped at the decking of the old wooden bridge.

“That bridge became a great problem as traffic got denser. It only had a passing section in the middle and jams and arguments followed. Eventually lights were installed…Many a motorcyclist came to grief on the old wooden bridge on frosty mornings,” recalled former local resident, Fred Bradshaw.

When no action was taken a group of irate residents calling themselves the Haumoana Black Bridge Committee bombarded the Hawke’s Bay County Council with complaints and requests until it passed the concerns to the District Highways Council.

It had been a long and arduous battle to have the old bridge with its “steel and wooden patchings” replaced. A deputation had managed to entice Minister of Public Works Robert Semple to visit the spot in the early 1940s “to see and feel for himself the wobbly state of the old bridge”.

The story goes that while he was meeting with the locals in the middle of the bridge a district sheep farmer “happened” to take a heavy lorry load of sheep across. “The shakes so convinced Mr Semple that he uttered one of his famous never to be forgotten wisecracks: ‘This bridge is only standing up by force of habit’.”

It seemed everyone agreed, although post-war difficulties in getting steel presented a problem and no dates were set. After a stream of complaints about the nails and spikes protruding from the decking and damaging vehicle tyres, the HBCC approved re-decking.

The lobbyists for a new bridge were indignant. For all their efforts, they got more patch up jobs. If that wasn’t bad enough the Red Bridge at the Waimarama crossing was now in even worse condition and declared unsafe, forcing that traffic to be diverted along a riverbank road across the Black Bridge.

A further £3,000 was spent on strengthening and while the HBCC was saving up a ‘replacement fund’ it was to be another five years before the Bridge Replacement Account had accumulated £5,000.

In 1952 the original “old faithful” Black Bridge was still intact after coming through another flood while its replacement was still in the planning stages with comments made by locals that the only way to end its time would be to dismantle it.

During construction, the approach from Clive was completely realigned, eliminating two turns in the end of Mill Rd through an extension to Mill Rd then a gradual easterly curve toward the new bridge being constructed upstream from the existing single lane bridge.

The new steel and concrete structure; 1200ft (366 m) long, 20ft wide (6m) with 15 x 80ft (24.3m) welded plate girder spans. The deck and a 5-foot (1.5m) pathway were reinforced concrete with huge 4ft 6 in (1.4m) thick steel girders supported by 11 piles 60ft (18.2m) deep into the riverbed. It crossed the river at right angles to the flow of water and was much higher above the river than its predecessor to compensate for flood height, necessitated by new stop banks on either side of the new site.

Three bays were spaced along the length so pedestrians could seek refuge and close the gates behind them when cattle were crossing. The footpath was designed “to facilitate the passage of picnic parties to and from the Black Bridge domain – a popular picnic spot.”

As the second and more practical bridge was nearing its opening date, F. R. Hursthouse in the Freelance, memoralised the rickety old predecessor that had served the coastal communities for 89-years.

He talked of the original Black Bridge having a personality in the district, that it was spoken of “like a person nearing a century in age” with its last days numbered. There was now a sense that “with the brand new concrete bridge, now nearly finished...each journey over the ancient construction may be the last motorists take.”

The new Black Bridge, costing around £170,000 was officially opened at 3pm, October 6, 1956 by the Minister of Works, the Hon. W.S Gooseman, chairman of the National Roads Board. The Hawke’s Bay County Council invited the public and 300 prominent citizens of Napier, Hastings and surrounding areas with official guests invited to entertainment at the Haumoana Hall afterwards.

While much was made of the ‘first vehicles to cross, it was widely known that a few enthusiastic motorists had already ‘christened’ the bridge by removing the approach barriers and driving across at night.”

Like its predecessor, the new Black Bridge became an essential link between Clive and Haumoana and points beyond, forking off left into Haumoana and right into Te Awanga with the massive gum tree, believed to be one of the largest in the country in the middle of the fork.

Within six months the old bridge was gone, lying dismembered on both sides of the former approach road. As the HB Herald reported “it did not look nearly as black as its name would lead one to suppose. Only a few parts were really black – those touched by numerous fires which plagued the bridge’s last days.”

The timber, about 200 lots of 36 lengths about 20 or 30-foot-long, was up for auction to contractors and farmers under the watchful eye of a few local identities, some of it ending up as chap firewood. “Under the auctioneer’s hammer – as ugly, bolt studded lengths – the bridge did not bring anything like its value as a useful bridge…it seemed an ungrateful end to ‘old faithful’.”

Sources: Almost a personality in the district…Bridge standing only ‘by force of habit’, F.R Hursthouse, New Zealand Freelance, August 31, 1956 James Belich. 'Whitmore, George Stoddart', from the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, updated 30-Oct-2012 Clive, Barnes and MacErlich, Clive, p 46 Old Black Bridge has served the district well, HB Herald, 5-10-1956 Auckland Weekly, October 1952 Cinderella Bridge on drawing boards, Daily Telegraph, 15 May 1954 Timber from old Black Bridge sold at auction, HB Herald 15-04-1957 Black Bridge to be opened on Saturday, Daily Telegraph, 03-10-56

Photographs:

Hawke’s Bay Digital Archives Trust, Hastings District Council Archives and Hawke’s Bay MTG

100 acres grown along Cape Coast Random tobacco plants continue to appear in Haumoana and Te Awanga gardens and paddocks more than a century after the closure of a short-lived experiment by the founder of the New Zealand Tobacco Company.

In the lead up to WW1 a promising crop of tobacco covered 200 acres of land from Parkhill down to the coast until mildew and a phobia about German management temporarily put an end to those plans.

German tobacco entrepreneur Gerhard Husheer, first travelled to New Zealand in the late 1880s when he became convinced it had potential as a tobacco growing country.

After living in South Africa during the Boer War and marrying Norwegian Bertha Peterson and establishing the Allied Allied Tobacco Company, he returned to New Zealand in 1911 with his wife and three sons. With the help of the Department of Agriculture he began to experiment with tobacco at a number of locations including Pakipaki and Clive Grange. In 1912 he became manager of the New Zealand Tobacco Company and helped establish plantings of up to 100 acres, along with air-curing barns and flue-curing kilns which were erected alongside storage facilities. A transplanting machine was imported from Canada capable of planting two and a half to three acres a day.

The first factory with machinery for processing was built near the present National Tobacco Company site at Port Ahuriri, where domestically grown leaf, including Gold Pouch, the first toasted tobacco in New Zealand was successfully marketed.

A short harvest Leaf production increased during World War I, with different varieties grown and often blended with imported strains of American, Turkish and Balkan tobacco.

In May 1914, it looked like tobacco might become a major industry for Haumoana and Te Awanga, with locals and workers gathered for a tobacco harvest festival at the Clive Grange tobacco farm to celebrate the first harvest. Sports events were held during the day with refreshments and prizes provided by NZ Tobacco Company manager Mr G Husheer and his wife. A social with a range of entertainment was held in the evening in the new store room. A toast was raised by Mr E. Maney stating Mr Husheer had treated his employees generously. Mr Husheer hoped that in the near future he could provide full time jobs for all employees. It wasn’t to be. The next crop was hit by mildew, forcing the closure and sale of the Haumoana farm, although stocks of leaf had been stored to last the next 2-3 years. By the end of the WW1 the business was paying handsome profits to its share-holders, but a group of directors forcibly evicted Gerhard and his sons from the factory, having decided the Husheers, because of their German decent, should no longer be in control.

Gerhard founded a new syndicate on the old gumfields at Riverhead west of Auckland. Then, in 1922 formed the National Tobacco Company, acquiring full ownership from shareholders of the New Zealand Tobacco Company. Those who had ousted him from his successful Ahuriri business had virtually run it into the ground after loyal supporters walked out in support of the Husheers. Gerhard Husheer now purchased the premises and plant and rebuilt the industry with leaf suppled from Riverhead and Te Atatu.

The factory was destroyed during the 1931 Hawke’s Bay earthquake but Husheer had made a fortune and had a new art deco styled factory created on the old site and was soon back in production. The factory was taken over by Rothmans Tobacco Company on his death, aged 90, in 1954. The building is now considered one of Napier’s main art deco attractions.

Sources: Tobacco Harvest Festival, Hastings Standard, 12 May 1914 Elizabeth Hill, Between Two Rivers, CHB Printers and Publishers, Waipukurau, 1990, p 177-188 Photos: Gerhard Husheer from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Husheer; NZ Tobacco Company prospectus from Port Stories and the crop picture from an article in the Auckland Weekly News, 13 March 1915.

Whaling near the Cape Coast

Irishman William Morris, the earliest European settler in Hawke’s Bay, established a shore whaling station at Whakaari near Tangoio in 1841 and then at Rangaika on the southern side of Cape Kidnappers in 1845.

By 1840 there were up to 1000 whalers in New Zealand doing a thriving business. Whaling began in Gisborne in 1837 and within a decade there were 17 boats in Hawke’s Bay, mainly concentrated around Mahia. Other than whalers the only other permanent residents were missionaries William and Elizabeth Colenso who arrived in 1844 and Scotsman Alexander Alexander who opened the first of several Hawke’s Bay trading post at Ahuriri (Napier) in 1846. William Morris lived with his Maori wife Puihi Te Umutapu and along with brother-in-law Nepia Tokotahi operated three boats and hired 20 mainly local Maori men at Tangoio and later at Rangaika. Colenso met Morris, known as Morete to local Maori, at Rangaika where he lived “closer to the Maori than any other European in the district”. The two developed a life-long friendship. When the shore whalers had difficulty hauling their catch around Cape Kidnappers to their main stations they established short term stations for months at a time at Clifton and Te Awanga.

Hawke’s Bay stations were heavily dependent on Maori labour. Many went on to become boat steerers and headsman, some set up their own operations and a number purchased their own schooners and were active in coastal trading.

Fee for whale rights At Rangaika, Morris paid an annual fee of five pounds for whaling, fishing and occupation rights to Tiakitai, who was patron of his whaling station. In return he and his Ngati Hawea and Ngati Kurukuru hapu at Waimarama gained access to goods, trading opportunities and paid work.

Tiakitai, who had been the original seller of the Cape Coast land to W.B Rhodes, was known within the local whaling community as Jacky Tie and had his own whaleboat which he used for shore whaling and trading. Tiakitai lost his life in September 1847 when his boat capsized in rough seas off the Mohaka Coast on the way to marriage of his son Te Teira Tiakitai.

Following that tragedy in which 20 men lost their lives, Morris paid his fees for the right to his whaling operation at Rangaika to Kurupo Te Moananui. Morris had a contract with Captain Salmon of the cutter Fisherman and Captain McFarlane of the schooner Aurora to take whale oil back to Auckland. This was paid for in goods and sovereigns. His money was kept in pickle bottles, 100 sovereigns in each, which he buried for safekeeping. The rocky entrance to the horseshoe shaped bay at Rangaika required skill to navigate. The whalers had to be fit and fearless. Morris was described as “one of the most fearless men who ever went out” and had lost an eye through a harpooning accident. He once spotted a dark object in the water and ordered his brother in law Nepia Tokitahi to harpoon it. Despite being told that the object in question was a rock, Morris insisted. The rock was subsequently dubbed ‘Tokitia’ (striking the axe). Friends and relatives teased Morris about the incident for the rest of his life.

Like other whalers, Morris supplemented his income by trading not only whale oil and whalebone, but pigs, flax and corn. He left Rangaika in 1848 opting for full time trading and farming at Wherowhero (near Gisborne). Colenso correspondence After Morris left the district, he and Colenso corresponded frequently. In one 1852 letter, Colenso associated the view of the Cape from his Napier cottage with memories of his old neighbour: “I scarcely ever walk in my verandah and look toward the Cape but I think of you. That Cape and yourself somehow seem as if linked in my mind. Perhaps it is owing to you being our nearest white neighbour during the first years of your residence there.”

In the same letter, Colenso expressed his concern on hearing Morris had opened a public house: “I would rather you follow anything else than grog-selling” and wrote of his fears that Maori were continuing to sell off their land at an unsustainable rate.

When urgent business called Morris to Napier, he preferred to make the journey on his white horse, ‘Copenhagen’, which became as well-known as he was. He leased land for sheep farming near Wairoa and at Tangoio in 1867 before going into business at The Spit (Ahuriri), Napier, where he ran a store until his death in July 1882.

By 1860 large scale whaling had ceased and the last remaining smaller operations would disappear by the 1880s. The golden era was over and the whaling business was in rapid decline. The whalers, through their ruthless methods had undermined their own future.

In 1925, evidence of one of the whaling stations was excavated from the sand for closer inspection by two young Hastings residents N. Murton and S.W Baldwin. The metre high and metre wide try pots had been known abd a small shore-based station at Putotaranui between Ocean beach and Waimarama in the early 1850s.

Whale oil was heated in the pots and apparently drained off into a 400-gallon square tank, the remains of which was also visible in the 1920s. Lower down the beach, on a papa shelf, were the remains of a bollard and its equipment, used to drag the whale and whaling boats up the beach. Between the pots were the remains of several crude homes built from stone slabs.

Evidence remained for many years of two large derelict whaleboats pulled up near the beach at Te Awanga, apparently abandoned by the whalers.

The try pots were still visible along the coast in 1938. Then, in 1999, two of the three pots were airlifted from Rangaika to their new home in front of the newly opened Clifton Café.

Sources:

Photographs: Hawke’s Bay MTG Archives, Keith Newman and Wright

Haumoana Playground Story - battle for playground and facilities

In the first years of the 20th century, Clive Grange Beach, the Tukituki river mouth and camp ground were a popular holiday spot with many day trippers heading out for a picnic. Tattersall’s stables ran a dray to the beach at 9am every Sunday, for a return fare of 2/6d. Special arrangements were made for family picnic parties. Holidaymakers were so taken with their time in this paradise by the sea they were reluctant to return home, with headmasters reporting the numbers returning to school in early February 1904 were significantly reduced. In the holiday period of 1906-1907 around 40-50 families were camped there.

After drowning accidents, “a beach improvements committee provided lifebuoys and warning notices” to make life at Clive Grange beach safer.

However, efforts by the Clive Grange (Haumoana) Improvement Society to have suitable amenities installed to cater for the burgeoning picnic and camping area dragged on for several years.

When amenities were finally put in place, having them maintained presented a further challenge as did gaining some local ownership of the area and recognition of local concerns about the shifting river mouth and the erratic driving of visitors in their newfangled motor vehicles.

Conveniences needed

In May 1914 two bathing sheds were washed away in a flood and the Haumoana Improvement Committee at its annual meeting at Clive Grange Presbyterian Church in January 1915, wrote possibly for a second or third time to the HB County Council urgently requesting conveniences be provided due to the “large crowds visiting the area”.

In October, the committee made a further request for conveniences, and to seek some control over land at the river mouth. It wanted improvements to the remaining men’s bathing sheds and new rings for the swings in the playground. And it continued its correspondence with The River Board warning of a new threat to the area, “the cut in the river” was threatening settlers at Clive Grange.

The committee was also concerned that cyclists were being run off the Hastings to the Grange road by over eager motorists. “The inconvenience and discomfiture of being smothered in dust is bad enough, but the danger to cyclists who are apt to be thrown from their track by ruts and stones etc is a very real one. The fact that half the surface of the road to the Grange is rough metal has aggravated the trouble this year and motorists have no compunction in rushing up on the smooth half of the road even though it may be the wrong side with the same speed they do when they have the road clear.”

The failure of the HBCC to respond to multiple requests for improved conveniences at Haumoana was on the agenda again in January 1916 as were the other prevailing issues, The River Board’s failure to close the ‘cut’ in the river and speeding motorists during weekends and holidays. The Police were now being asked to take action.

A year later the committee, having failed to get any response from the River Board, wrote again stating their failure to close the cut meant “the island was nearly wasted away”.

‘The island’ can only refer to one of three islands in the river mouth where early Maori settlements had been. The remains of two can still be seen on the northern estuaries of the Tukituki which can be viewed from East Clive (Waipureku).

Unsanitary conditions

By early 1917 it was evident no local council was willing to support the formation of a Domain Board to look after the camping area and its facilities. No action had been taken to provide new facilities and the bathing sheds were becoming unsanitary “through misuse”.

A sub-committee was formed to deal with sanitary improvements and look into whether the sheds may need to close.

Finally, in December 1917, there was action. The Hastings Standard, commended the Beach Improvement committee for its work in erecting public conveniences at the Clive Grange beach. A substantial concrete water tower had been built with ladies and men’s dressing sheds on either side, including cisterns, wash basins, and showers.

“Tents were already being erected ahead of the camping season and all available houses and whare’s were already rented out.” Within a year, however, letters to the local papers complained the conveniences were “going from bad to worse…and becoming a discredit to the residents and the local beach committee. In December 1920 one writer referred to sanitary arrangements as being more like “a death trap”.

Concurrently a challenge to the preferred seaside resort was being mounted to the south by rival seaside resort, Te Awanga with its popular lagoon and camping ground slowly evolving and plans for small whares (huts) for weekend visitors going ahead.

The facilities at Haumoana were gradually eroded by inundation and finally Around 1936 village was completely flooded; the playground and facilities irreparably damaged and concrete retaining walls placed along the beach to protect the area were buried under shingle.

Sources: Hastings Standard, 23 Jan 1915 Hastings Standard, 23 October, 1915 Hastings Standard, 13 January 1916 Hastings Standard, 25 Jan 1917 Hastings Standard, 17 December 1917 Hastings Standard, issue 208, 2 Dec 1920 Hastings Standard, 11 February 1919 Hastings Standard, 4 March 1920. City of the Plains, A History of Hastings, M.B Boyd, Victoria University Press (for Hastings City Council), 1984, p 155.

Photo: Swings at Grange Beach, MTG Archives with permission

Single lane bridge ends isolationSo who gives way to who? (1300)

Until the original Black Bridge was completed in 1888, the only access to the coastal regions of Haumoana, Te Awanga and Clifton was by sea or horse and cart across mud flats at low tide from East Clive.

In the early pioneering days, few ever considered the fertile land south of the Tukituki river mouth would ever be anything other than farm land; its “enforced isolation” seemed to make it unsuited for close settlement.

The inland plains were the domain of large sheep stations and cropping paddocks, and the river was a highway in its own right, with people, goods and produce ferried up and down its length between various Maori villages and settler farms.

Making a case to build a bridge, essentially serving the large properties of Craggy Range, Clive Grange and Clifton, was a long drawn out process. When it was finally agreed to, it was narrow, low to the river, dangerous to cross during semi-regular flooding and certainly not suited to the evolving age of the motor vehicle.

“On busy days traffic bottlenecks were unavoidable. It is on record that an argument by two motorists who met head on in the centre of the bridge on one occasion held up traffic for almost two hours,” wrote F.R Hursthouse in the New Zealand Freelance in August 1956.

W. Tucker, deputy chairman of the Napier Harbour Board, witnessing the opening as a young boy. “It was called the Black Bridge because it never had any paint but the tar brush, just as the bridge much further up the river on the way to Waimarama was painted red and was known as the Red Bridge.” There was a passing bay in the middle of the narrow 2000ft (610m) long bridge where fishermen caught herrings. Cars and lorries depended on the bay to navigate their way across but there were endless traffic jams with queues of cars waiting at either end. Even after 1938 when the bay was removed and the bridge converted into a one-way structure with ‘refuges’ for cyclists and pedestrians fights still broke out over who got onto the bridge first. Local kaumatua Darky Unahi recalls as a youngster he and his mates would go down and watch the traffic jams build up in the small passing lane. taking bets on who would get into a fight first as stubborn drivers refused to give way or back up.

“We’d run along top and dive off into deep water to get out of the way if they were having a scrap so we didn’t get a hiding too. They put lights on the bridge later on but that didn’t solve it,” he says.

Stock were driven across daily and the “the bridge was sanded so hooves would not slip”, then lorries began to be used. Horse riders mostly dismounted and walked across while “many an impatient motorist” had to wait their turn, said Hursthouse.

The old wooden bridge had been set on fire five times “through picnics held, or carelessly thrown cigarette butt”. The most serious threat was the 1939 Anzac Day flood which devastated many Hawke’s Bay areas. Origins of the bridge The Tukituki, Grange or Black Bridge, was the fourth large bridge built by the Hawke’s Bay County Council and first proposed in 1877 by Land Wars veteran Colonel George Whitmore, who had led seven military campaigns including those against the Hauhau in Hawke’s Bay, Te Kooti along the East Coast and pursuing Titokowaru in Taranaki.

Whitmore had resigned from the Hawke’s Bay County Council after only months in the job to take on the role of Colonial Secretary. Having sold Rissington station and purchased Clive Grange Estate from Joseph Rhodes in 1873, Whitmore insisted something be done about bridging the Tukituki River but his proposal was deemed too costly. Later councillor F. Sutton put a motion to go ahead and raise a loan with the support J. N. Loughan of Tukituki, T. E. Gordon of Clifton Station and J. Roberts of The Grange, the three main ratepayers who offered to pay all the interest through a targeted rate over 26-years on a £6,000 loan. The Clive Road Board applied for another £3,000.

Again a double lane bridge proved too costly so a single lane version was designed by Mr J. T. Carr.

Bullocks and brute strength In a 1956 Freelance article, Haumoana Progressive Association president, C. J Baker, says the bridge was constructed by Mackenzie Brothers, bridge builders from Palmerston North between 1867-87. Timber was carted form Farndon to East Clive. “Bullocks two by two would drag the heavy bridge timber and swim across the river with a driver named Macdonald on the back ones. Floods came and when the timber (was) washed to the beach the patient bullocks would have to drag it back again.”

The old bridge had 19 spans, each 60 ft (18m) long with four 30ft (9m) long spans at one end. The piles were each in two sets of four with each span supported by eight piles of 12 x 12 (3.6 x 3.6m) totara, one foot square (30cm). Bill Haig and Paddy O’Connell handled the blacksmith work including making the heavy iron bolts.

When a long stretch of protection work was swept away in the October 1887 flood and the council had used up all the money borrowed for construction a dispute arose over who would pay for its completion, the Clive Board or the Hawke’s Bay County Council.

When the designer Mr Carr lengthened the bridge by four spans or 36.5m at the councils expensive Mr Roberts of The Grange offering an incentive of a £2,000 cheque if the bridge was finished in 18 months. When it finally opened on 9 May 1888 “in a burst of handshaking and congratulations”, councillor Sutton declared it one of the most important works undertaken in Hawke’s Bay and only one of two instances of property owners putting their hands in their pockets to pay for a public work.

“Its erection (a quick job by modern standards) was watched with keen interest. Schoolchildren ‘played the wag’ to spend hours at the scene; Sunday afternoon buggy parties drove to the Tuki Tuki by the dozens.….The owner of the Farndon Hotel, Mr J.P. Smith, opened up a drinking booth at the site – and did a roaring trade,” stated an article in the Hawke’s Bay Herald in October 1856.

After the bridge was ‘christened’ by Miss Ellen Mary Tanner (later to be Mrs Frank Gordon of Clifton Estate) the local media reported “a general march…on to the bridge to the refreshment table in the middle”.

Thomas Tanner, a major landholder who often referred to himself as the founder of Hastings, proposed toasts to the contractor, the engineer and others “then all adjourned to the other side for a monster picnic among in the blue gums” on a property then owned by L.J. Ireland. The first man to cross the bridge was a Mr Ellis who drove a buggy and pair of horses across from Grange Station. It was said half the population of Clive were “carried home in wheelbarrows after a most excellent and liberal function”.

Following the celebrations, the old contentions and rivalries resurfaced over the benefit of private property owners when councillor Sutton urged immediate tree planting for the protection of the bridge.

There was a general grumbling that this too would benefit private land owners. It was finally agreed to spend £200 on planting willows at the bridge. Councillor Williams summed up what the rest of the council were apparently feeling: “We have got ourselves a white elephant and now we’ve got to feed it”.

Mr Bennett also complained the coast road would now require another bridge further up the Tukituki. The Red Bridge at the Waimarama crossing completed the circuit in 1904.To be continued…..

Sources: Almost a personality in the district…Bridge standing only ‘by force of habit’, F.R Hursthouse, New Zealand Freelance, August 31, 1956 James Belich. 'Whitmore, George Stoddart', from the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, updated 30-Oct-2012 Clive, Barnes and MacErlich, Clive, p 46 Old Black Bridge has served the district well, HB Herald, 5-10-1956

Photographs: Hawke’s Bay Digital Archives Trust, Hastings District Council Archives and Hawke’s Bay MTG

About 900-years ago; before the Takitimu waka arrived with its crew of high priests and experts, Whatonga and his wife Hotuwaipara, the first residents of Hawke’s Bay, were living along the Cape Coast.

Whatonga’s first house Heretaunga; a name now adopted by the region, was located at Haumoana or Te Awanga. The decendants of Whatonga’s son Tara, intermarried with Kahungunu from the 1600s.

In the hills above Te Awanga are the archaeological remains one of the oldest continually inhabited Maori villages in the country.

Captain James Cook’s unfortunate first encounter with Te Awanga Maori in 1779, resulted in an attempted kidnap and the loss of Maori lives, giving rise to the name Cape Kidnappers. Off the Cape Coast, Cook named Hawke’s Bay.

In 1839 Barney Rhodes laid claim to much of Hawke’s Bay. After the Treaty of Waitangi was signed months later at the Tukituki river mouth, he was left with 4500 acres from the Cape Coast inland.

Around 1851 his brother Joseph who managed the vast Clive Grange Estate, built the first significant house in Hawke’s Bay and ultimately acquired all of Cape Kidnappers.

For a time; well about two months, Clive Grange was imagined as “the most flourishing port and city on the East Coast”. The financial crash and Napier won out.

When the first Black Bridge opened in 1888 the three major sheep stations were soon divided up. Clive Grange Beach and the Te Awanga lagoon were so popular, Hastings principals complained their classes looked empty for weeks after the school holidays.

A 200-acre tobacco crop flourished until mildew got into the leaves; and in 1903 Government viticulturalist Romeo Bragato identified Clive Grange as perfect for winegrowing but the prohibitionists had other ideas.

Anthony Vidal kickstarted winegrowing a decade later and 100-years on the Cape Coast is a major winegrowing, horticultural, cropping, lifestyle, hospitality and tourism area.

Clifton beach is the only place where floating trailers guide leisure craft in and out of the water; the British car museum, farm zoo, adventure park, surfing, gannet watching and award winning restaurants all add character and colour.

The Arts & Heritage Trail will enable locals, along with regional and international visitors, to share in these stories, gaining a sense of place and awareness about why the Cape Coast, gives Hawke’s Bay an edge.

A row of “giant shishkebabs”

Keith Newman explains how they got there

Back in the 1970s Te Awanga locals, fed up with inaction by local authorities over the regular erosion in front of their beachfront homes took matters into their own hands, creating the iconic double row of railway irons still evident today.

While some scoff at the rusting imposition on the beachscape, many locals continue to swear the irons, particularly when loaded up with old tyres, can indeed deflect the power of the ocean.

Some insist that if it maintained properly they would continue to provide an extra layer of protection against the rolling ocean when it ventures too close to residences.

While several irons have been removed because corrosion presented a danger, dozens remain deeply planted into the beach with tyres mysteriously appearing from time to time to enhance this curiosity often remarked on by visitors.

So how did the Te Awanga beach protection plan get underway?

Discussions were initiated early in 1974 by Te Awanga Progressive Association (TAPA) member and engineer Doug Reeks, along with Lew Nicoll and others on how to halt erosion.

They eventually deciding on a “picket fence” of railway irons across the high tide mark in front of at-risk Te Awanga beachfront homes.

This came after approaches to the Catchment Board, the Hawke’s Bay County Council (HBCC) and Government ministers had failed to deliver any practical support.

The experiment began in earnest with first 3.6m railway iron driven into the beach just before the big seas hit in August 1974. Mr Nicoll, using a tractor and pole driver was paid to place over 200 railway irons driven 2.4m deep into the beach in front of most of the 50 sections.

“We’re only experimenting at present but we’re hoping these will break the waves up,” he said.

After local MP Dick Harrison failed to convince the Minister of Railways to supply the irons at a reduced price, locals ended up paying the going rate, 55 cents a foot. The cost of driving them into the beach was $11 per iron. Section owners paid $80 each.

Residents were frustrated the Catchment Board would not assist. While Catchment Board chief engineer Peter Simons conceded the scheme had merit but refused to assist saying the board would never spend money on such temporary work. It considered stopping the work but decided to “turn a blind eye”.

The TAPA newsletter of March 1975 reported it had spent $650 with a further $300 approved to finish the job making the irons 8ft apart and tapering toward the lagoon.

TAPA secretary Mary Reeks said $300 had been raised by the Village to Association Shop Day with “little or no help” from any local authorities or central government since the floods, despite an approach to Cabinet ministers.

All up TAPA contributed $1350 toward the cost and by August 1975 the total had reached $5410.

While the two 1500m lines of “picket fence” were heading toward the Te Awanga Lagoon, locals added piles of truck tyres, piercing them through the irons to further break the power of the sea.

According to one media report the fence resembled “a row of giant shishkebabs”.

Many mocked the effort, suggesting there was no way it would make a difference but four months later, after high seas, locals were applauding their success despite claims by the HB Catchment Board that “you just can’t stop it (the sea)”.

Contractor Lew Nicoll quipped “you can’t stop the sea but you can take the force out of it and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

Locals claimed their railway iron protection plan had managed to break the force of the waves and prevent gravel from being dragged away.

Mr Nicoll said the beach now had a chance to build up and consolidate behind the barricade. In some more exposed places there is a double row.

“We have all but beaten the sea but if the catchment board would concede our idea works, and provide a third row of irons, Clifton Rd would never have to worry about erosion again.”

“It’s cost us about $5500 – the catchment board spent $15,000 for a survey of the area and all there is to show for it is a couple of survey pegs,” said Mr Nicoll.

Sources:

Article: Keith Newman, paraphrased from WOW unpublished manuscript Saving the Cape Coast (2016) for Cape Coast Arts & Heritage Trust Sources: Te Awanga residents spent $5410 to fight erosion, HB Herald Tribune, 17-09-75 Erosion dilemma, Dominion 02-11-1974 TAPA March 1975 newsletter Te Awanga residents spent $5410 to fight erosion, HB Herald Tribune, 17-09-75 Iron seawall ‘that wouldn’t work’ saves homes, 24.4.76. Herald Tribune

Haumoana memories of Hiraani Logan (nee Scott) - A cow named Tiki, donkey business, love and tragedy

Hiraani Logan (nee Scott), who was three years old when her family moved into The Grange property in Haumoana Rd in 1921, remembers Haumoana as “one of the best parts of New Zealand…except when the storms come.”

While flooding from rain, river or the sea would at times cause water to come over the road “it never got to our property which was protected by a stop bank. We all had canoes and others would row a boat to the store until the water subsided,” said Hiraani.

“We were blessed because we were on the river and had our own jetty and diving board. When they made the stop banks the river stopped at the edge of our place,” and an area under the trees became known as Lover’s Lane “where couples liked to canoodle”.

In fact, she says, the Scott family had quite a job keeping people away. “They’d go up the river and land on our jetty.”

Hiraani, a former hairdresser and “haute couturier dress designer” and one of seven children of Charles and Kathleen Scott, was a grand 96-years old when interviewed in 2016.

She was elegantly dressed and engaging, tapping her walking stick on the ground to emphasise a point or in frustration when details wouldn’t come as quickly as her desire for expression.

She recalls riding a horse to Clive Grange School (later renamed Haumoana School), attending church in Clive with her father and described the Haumoana she knew as a close-knit community of families, most of whom had permanent homes, with holiday baches at the south end of town.

Her father Charlie, a Gallipoli veteran who was wounded while trying to rescue a fellow soldier, loved hunting, shooting and fishing, and was a great tennis player despite his injury. Her mother Kathleen, was “a very artistic and capable woman who always had a bed for people who were needy.”

The social scene

There were afternoon tea parties with cakes every Sunday. “Kath was a wonderful cook. She really helped build that sense of community in Haumoana. The place was always full of people.”

Many garden parties were held to raise funds for the Red Cross and other causes. “I didn’t like them because we had a two storey house and I always had to show people to the upstairs and downstairs lavatories.” “Every Wednesday night there were things on at the Haumoana Hall including folk dancing. Everyone knew each other...we were independent but joined up through sport or dances and that included people from Te Awanga as well,” recalled Hiraani.

She remembers the tennis courts and club neighbouring their Grange property at Cavill Park (named after Edith Cavill) and a rifle club. “Haumoana was so lively. We used to have films in the local hall, music evenings at the motor camp and dances.

We had two general stores where you could get everything you needed and one was a Post Office. The butcher and baker both called with their vans. We bought fish off the boats.”

Hiraani’s father was often unwell and she and her brother Blake often wondered why he went to Auckland regularly. “I wondered if he was going away from mother but we later learned he was having treatment from Dr McKenzie at the hospital to remove the shrapnel in his shoulder.”

She recalls the large vegetable garden her father created and an orchard area with grapes and passionfruit and apricot trees; when the trees were laden and the she had a hand in distributing ripe fruit the neighbourhood. “He had the most beautiful chook house with green trellis, red roof and concrete path and 500 chooks. He sold the eggs and people would come for the chooks as well.” The hens were also something of a tourist attraction.

Tiki the wonder cow

We had our own tennis court and beautiful gardens; in the ‘forest’ we’d build tree houses and there were natural camellias there and the family had a cow named Tiki that produced milk continually for 17-years. “The local newspaper came out and took a photograph, evidently that was quite something,” says Hiraani.

Indeed, the Auckland Star reported in February 1935 that “town and country folk alike in the Hawke’s Bay district have been mildly surprised by the revelation of Mr C. Scott, farmer at Haumoana…that a cow on his property has given milk every day for the past 11-years without having calved.”

Her owner Charlie Scott is reported as describing the family pet, purchased 13-years previously for £14, as a “lacteal gold mine”. She was then a second calver and had two more calves in three years. “Following after the third calving she dried off, but from the time she produced her fourth and last calf, 11 years ago, she has given milk daily…Tiki’s record for continuous production is in no way attributable to special feeding. Even under the extremely dry conditions lately ruling, she has averaged a gallon and a half a day. When the spring lush in growth sets in her production leaps to the two gallon mark.”

Charles Scott bought the first donkeys to Hawke’s Bay, other than the team of Indian army donkeys landed by James Gillespie Gordon when he offloaded his worldly goods at Clifton in 1859. The Scott family had a holiday home on Waiheke Island and befriended the Chamberlains who also had land there and bred donkeys to feed the lions at the Auckland Zoo.

Charles had asked whether they would sell him one to take back to Hawke’s Bay. “Mr Chamberlain said why not make better use of the stock carriage and take six more...The Bones family bought one and built a little phaeton (carriage for it) and rode from Hastings into Napier for a charity parade. It took all day and they were all dressed up with a carrot on a stick to keep the poor thing moving. That was the first time people had seen them,” said Hiraani.

The Bones’ began breeding donkeys after that as did their neighbours the Coops (Coutts?) family, she says.

Donkey rides on the foreshore were once a popular drawcard. According to a 1961 article in the Daily Telegraph, visitors would on arrival take their horse out of the gig and tie it up under the trees while the children played, swam and rode the donkeys.

The donkeys were owned by Hiraani Blake’s maternal grandfather John (J.T Blake) and his wife Eliza (the parents of Kathleen) who owned a holiday home at Haumoana. J.T was a long serving member and one time chairperson of the Haumoana Beach Improvement Society. The paper recalls one incident when a Mr John Walden, proud owner of a show horse that had taken many prizes, arrived at the beach.

After securing his horse safely under the trees. Later when he planned to set off for home “he had not reckoned on the donkeys and that his horse had never set eyes on one before. No sooner has he harnessed his horse then one of the donkeys emerged from behind the trees and brayed loudly. The horse, whose name was Jack, dropped dead with fright. Aerial tragedy

Hiraani’s brother Blake Scott had been a sergeant in the airforce and was flying one of the first Kittyhawk aircraft in New Zealand in December 1942. His mother Kathleen heard a plane overhead and as the sound got louder she went outside to investigate.

“And there was Blake waving at her. He swooped down again and again and mother was quite frightened and she waved at him to go away, so he did one more loop and off he went,” said Hiraani.

On his journey back to base he ran into a storm at Taihape and hit power lines. “The Duncan family who were shepherds got on their horses to go to his aid but it was too late, he was on fire when they go there. Mr Duncan got burned trying to assist and was given a George Medal for his efforts. It was very sad. Mother was so upset. She gave him a couple of Maori artefacts as her way of saying thank you for trying.”

Hiraani and Bob Logan, a shepherd working around the wider Haumoana area, had met as teenagers. He was so infatuated with the young daughter of Charles and Kath Scott, that rather than travel across the single lane Black Bridge he found it quicker to row across the Tukituki river in a dinghy to the back of the family property.

Bob returned shell shocked in the middle of WW2 and asked Hiraani to marry him. When they were first married he worked as a shepherd at the Haddington property of the McNiven family at Te Awanga and lived in the little cottage which is still by the roadside.

Hiraani’s daughter Louise says the McNivens treated her and Bob like family. She recalls those first few years growing up on the farm alongside the McNiven daughters Barbara (Casley) and Jocelyn.

Her parents then moved to the family farm at Pukekino, near Kereru. Engaging with Maori heritage in those times was not an easy thing to do. Even though her brother, the much-lauded architect John Scott designed a new bar for the Hastings Club, and it was suggested by some that it would be a “nice idea if he became a member” that process took time. “That hurt a bit. We knew why but the president was determined and eventually John became a member,” says Hiraani.

Husband Bob agrees things were very sticky. “It’s unbelievable what took place and it’s very sad the country got itself into this stupid mess. There was no need for it. Maori and Pakeha fought side by side in the first and second world war and it (race relations) were very badly handled.”

Sources:

Interview with Hiraani Logan, 2016

Lacteal gold mine – Tiki of Napier, Auckland Star, 9 Feb 1935

Horse saw donkey then died, Daily Telegraph, July 1, 1961

RNZAF aircraft struck tree making an emergency landing during bad weather. Sergeant Blake Francis Scott lost his life. Evening Post, Iss 143, 14 December 1942

Photos Keith Newman and early Bob and Hiraani supplied by their daughter Louise Pomare via Mathew Scott

Among the earliest residential homes established in Haumoana were those purchased by the maternal grandparents of local kaumatua Darky (Te Waara or Miki) Unahi in Haumoana Rd in the first decade of the 1900s for his mother, her sister and their families.

Darky was born in 1920, the fourth of 14 children, seven girls and seven boys. His grandfather worked at the freezing works at Pakipaki with about 50 others. “That was before Whakatu and Tomoana. There was no chain in those days. It was like a shearing shed where you worked solo. You did the whole lot slaughtering the sheep as they came in one by one, you cut their throats waited for them to get still, then gutted them and pelted them and took their tongues out. That’s how they did the count the number of tongues.”

He describes a big wooden wharf at the Tukituki river mouth where the present day groyne is, stretching perhaps 100 metres further out. “The sea was much further out and you could dive off the wharf. There were big bathing sheds there and a playground with swings.” He says trawlers used to come in to the wharf to offload fish which were transported to Napier on heavy trucks with tubeless tyres. “They would come in with 44 gallon drums of petrol for the boats and take the fish back.” The family routine included his mother rising early to get the washing on the line avoid the combination of wind off the sea and dust from the metal roads once people were heading off to work. In those days, the area behind Hyla Rd was mostly swamp. “It never changed much until after the war.” The swamp was drained, says Unahi, by poking a broom handle in the ground, inserting sticks of dynamite, linking it all and blowing it up. That’s how they drained it. There was no other way. They couldn’t get tractors in there.” When the big flood of 1936 resulted in the river overflowing and many properties in Haumoana being inundated, the Unahi family moved to the house on the corner of Beach Rd and East Rd which became known for many years as ‘Unahi’s corner’. “We leased it until I started shearing with my brothers down in central Hawke’s Bay and then they bought it for £200. My brother in law Bill Jones and my sister stayed in before they went to Havelock North.”

Before WW2 Darky says there were only four Maori families living in Haumoana, the Unahi family, Manaina, the Whatapau whanau in Park Rd and the Wepa family “down by the floodgate and pump station”.

While all metal crushing was originally done at the government plant at Awatoto to help build the railways, Unahi says establishing another plant at Black Bridge providing plenty of opportunity for locals from the 1940s. “The plant was owned by Ron Nelson who came from Waverley; that’s how everyone got their heavy driver’s licences carting crushed metal to the railway station in Clive.” In February 1958 Darky Unahi and his wife Rereokapuni (Rere) moved into their own home on the same site where he was born in Haumoana Rd to raise their own family. “The reason I built our here was I thought as soon as that new bridge comes across they’ll get sewerage. I don’t mind paying for that…All along the other side of Hyla Rd a chap named Maine had tomatoes then he sub-divided it in 1960s. They were all Poms who went in there and we called it Coronation St. Then they found septic tanks would work they refused to pay for a new sewage system.” Unahi also used to be the go-to person to issue permits for kina, paua and fish when local Maori wanted to exercise their customary rights for a tangi or family celebration. “I gave it up because so many were going out getting the fish and selling it somewhere else.” Apart from shearing, Unahi took on a range of jobs including ploughing the land at Te Awanga where Watties grew peas, corn, beetroot and beans.

The local kaumatua, Ratana minister, rugby coach, elder at Matahiwi marae, one time Hastings District councillor and keen fisherman is much respected in the local community. He and his wife had a long association with the Haumoana School.