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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 13, Issue 3 (June 1, 1938.)

The Charm of Wairoa — A Progressive East Coast Town

page 52

The Charm of Wairoa
A Progressive East Coast Town

Photos By The Author

Maoris fishing in the Wairoa River, near Wairoa town. In the background (right) is the tree under which the late Sir James Carroll was born, on 20th August, 1857.

Maoris fishing in the Wairoa River, near Wairoa town. In the background (right) is the tree under which the late Sir James Carroll was born, on 20th August, 1857.

At the southern gateway to the Lakeland of Waikaremoana, the Urewera forest—home of the Tuhoe folk, Wairoa is to-day charming all who pass through its lovely town. Yesterday, a long yesterday of over half a century, the approach to the town by sea or by land was anathema to comfort-loving travellers. Nor was the town inviting. First settled by whalers, men of chance, soldiers of fortune and adventurers, only imperative necessity forced the journey upon those who came later. This was no holiday route. Gradually, from Maori tracks over the ranges and across the gullies, a road was formed. The bullock teams and brave coach horses almost dying in their efforts to move their burden along the terrible ribbons of mud, are memories of that era which in passing has given way to highways built to national standard. Two parallel lines of steel have meanwhile crept through the hills, and over the gorges, bringing the iron horse. Matahoura, Mohaka, and Maungaturanga, no longer bar the way to merchandise. Mighty viaducts of steel tracery have bridged these great natural barriers. Meanwhile, born of two unlovely things, the town itself has become lovely.

In the twinkling of an eye in 1931, and again in 1932, came chaos through upheaval. A new town arose. In years of depression Wairoa wisely used its surplus man power to clean up her own front door, and from the unlovely river frontage of rank grass, weedy trees and accumulated rubbish, has created a beautiful parade.

* * *

An oleander blossom on a lady's bosom, and an old Maori dug-out canoe, contrast to remind us that our Dunedin friends have come and gone. Three days of a North Island camping holiday they spent in Wairoa. We found them in the Camping Ground. It was evening, and the tide was full. Had they been fishermen they would have had a line out right in front of their tent, for kahawai go well upstream. But the man said to me, “I love that old canoe”—deliberate use of the affectionate verb. His lady said to my lady Wandafar, “Don't the oleander trees grow beautifully in Wairoa.”

We sat on the old canoe, accidentally discovered in the mud of the riverbed near the Awamate creek mouth, this ancient seventy foot relic was brought to its present resting place to remind all passing travellers that Wairoa's ancestors were Maoris. While we talked, the last rowing crew, late home from their practice scull, passed by the rowing shed, four men in a craft of brown paper thickness on one of the finest rowing courses in the Dominion. As the pall of night descended the lights of the town made shining pathways across the water to our very feet. Wairoa will charm the world with its reflections. The town has opened its heart and purse to Neon lights, and viewed from North Clyde on a still night the scene is Venetian, with even the headlights of moving cars reflected and making each vehicle an amphibian, for the moment.

(Forestry Dept. photo.). The timbered ranges of the Urewera Country, North Island, New Zealand.

(Forestry Dept. photo.).
The timbered ranges of the Urewera Country, North Island, New Zealand.

Wairoa is also proud of its bridge, spanking new, for the old one disappeared into the river with the earthquake of 1931.

If you walk to the cemetery on the hill you will see two tombstones which tell the story of the eventful early days. The earlier is a carved totara cross with the carved inscription,

In Memory of George Annesley McDonell, Sub-Inspector of the Armed Constabulary Force Who Died at Te Wairoa, Oct. 8th, 1872.

Aged 38 years.

page 53

Under the shadow of that cross, memory takes us back to the days of Te Kooti. Your tour will be the more interesting if you glean the highlights of the career of this ill-advised Hau Hau before you visit Wairoa. The second grave concerns the first bridge. The tombstone is a jagged piece of steel, part of a cylinder in which men were working when the gases of the riverbed caused an explosion. Both were buried in the same grave on the 1st day of March, 1888. From that grave look out to sea, and before your eyes is a splendid view of the mouth of the river with its fickle bar. Both fickle and tragic! Long is the list of lives that were lost, and many were the brave ships that were wrecked on that fatal spot between river and sea. The bar, the river, and the bridge, are all features in Wairoa's march to accessibility.

An old Maori dugout canoe on the banks of the Wairoa River.

An old Maori dugout canoe on the banks of the Wairoa River.

First came the Ngati Kahungunu to oust the Moriori. His wakas were drawn up on the sand, and he made a fort on the hill just above the bar, and gave the fort the name of Rangioua. It was from this fort, perhaps, that wonderment and fear came to the Maori. A shark's fin cut the horizon, white sails appeared in view, and that day new names were given to the coastline; Cape Kidnappers, Young Nick's Head, and Poverty Bay. Came the whaler, established at Waikokopu in 1833, and at Wairoa in 1845. The first few dwellings were established at Kaimango, now Spooner's Point. Toha Rahu Rahu became the first bar pilot, and was followed in 1872 by the famous “Davy” Jones, who kept his locker, made and presented to him by the Harbour Board, on top of Rangioua. Two examples of the fickleness of the bar may be given. In 1866, the “Huntress,” a vessel of 200 tons was kept in the river for six months owing to the mouth being unworkable. When the passage to and from the sea was blocked for any length of time, the town would grow short of commodities, prices would soar, and the natives, particularly, would feel the pinch of short commons. The second incident concerns the experience of a Wairoa lady who visited Napier for the purpose of farewelling her adopted son, who was to journey to Ireland to study for Holy Orders. The young man departed and the lady, wishing to return immediately, made daily visits to the ship at the wharf. But the Wairoa bar had become unworkable, and as the overland route was also blocked by slips, she had perforce to remain in Napier, and while there actually received a cable informing her of her son's safe arrival in Ireland. Yet the distance between Napier and Wairoa is only 38 miles!

To-day the sturdy little “Tu Atu” still makes weekly trips from Napier to Wairoa, bar permitting. Is she to be the last, the very last, of the gallant coastal craft that served Wairoa as well as they were able? For a year now Wairoa citizens have used the phrase, “Coming up by transport”; and “transport” means huge trucks that carry the necessities and luxuries of life which speed up the Devil's Elbow (no longer a jesting place of his Satanic Majesty) and over those great ranges to Wairoa's retail houses. But even the magic name of “transport” is challenged. The planning of engineers, the plotting and graphing of surveyors, and the toil of navvies, by the sweat of the brow in summer's heat, or with muffled throats against winter's southerlies, have been the birth-pangs of the coming of the iron horse. Already the railway goods traffic has assumed considerable proportions. Another chapter has been written in the romance of the rail. The cemetery on the hill is also hallowed ground for all who have toiled with mind or muscle in the construction of the East Coast line, for here lie, but recently interred, and side by side, seven of the twenty-two victims of the Kopuawhara disaster.

Now come with us again to the centre of the bridge and we will show you much. Almost on the site of what is now the approach to the bridge lived Father Regnier, beloved first priest of his own faith. Close by can still be seen a huge apple tree planted by his hand, while he it was who planted the first briar rose. If he made a mistake that was costly to the district, his pioneer colleague of the Church of England, the Rev. Hamlin, made a far more costly one when he introduced the blackberry to Wairoa's fertile soil.

Pupils of the Te Reinga Native School with specimens of Tuko Tuko reed work.

Pupils of the Te Reinga Native School with specimens of Tuko Tuko reed work.

Now look downstream. To the left rises Te Uhi hill. It has three landmarks. The yellow gash up its flank is the Gisborne Highway. Follow this road to the summit of the hill, and less than 200 yards off the road you will find the earthworks of the century and a half old Paho fort. Te Uhi's third landmark is also an earthwork, but one such as the Maori never knew. From the bridge it shows as a great V-shaped cutting through which passes the parallel lines of steel that carry the railway rolling-stock to the Port of Waikokopu, and which line will eventually link Hawke's Bay with Poverty Bay. Below Te Uhi is the Pa which is still the home of the Ngati-Kurupakiaka sub tribe. Blackberries hide the old fort on this historic ground.

Now turn and look upstream. Rising above the river but half a mile away is the recently completed house of Timi Kara. It was a labour of love to build this magnificent Whare-runanga to the memory of Wairoa's greatest son, The Hon. Sir James Carroll, M.L.C., K.C.M.G. Decorated with tuko-tuko reedwork, and adorned with tremendous carved facades of totara, grotesque but symbolic, this house will be opened with a great Hui in the near future. The haka will welcome Maoris from all over New Zealand. Speeches will be heard page 54 on the marae, the twirl of poi will keep time to the music of the steel guitar, there will be music and feasting and dancing. But there will be many who will make a quiet trip to another spot also held sacred to the memory of Timi Kara. On the downstream side of the bridge, and perhaps a mile away, is the railed-in palm lily tree beneath which our hero was born. Up to their waists in water beneath the tree, if the tide is favourable, you will see wahines jagging herrings, or hauling in an occasional kahawai.

The Te Reinga Falls, 20 miles from Wairoa.

The Te Reinga Falls, 20 miles from Wairoa.

Assuming that you will come from Napier, you will find three roads leading out of Wairoa. Almost every hill and valley of these roads has its own story or tradition. Fighting and fearing, wooing and winning, land of the inaki or the bird spear, this was the land that the Ngati Kahungunu roamed. The pakeha learnt the Maori tracks, but the natives were expert in ambush. In the telling of the clashes between dark and pale braves let us in fairness at least, desist from describing the Maoris’ victories as massacres, for not all of them were such.

These roads will also lead you to beauty. Take the Rotorua highway, and Waikaremoana will be at your feet for much of the journey and you will be clothed around by the magnificence of the Urewera forests. Take the coastal highway to Gisborne and you will sec Morere, the thermal gem of the coast. Wander in its aisles of loveliness and behold nikaus such as you will see nowhere else in the island, softened by light golden tawa. Bathe in its open air bath, floodlit in the evening, or try the curative properties of the three other baths, each enclosed in its own house. Or simply go to Morere for its beauty and peace.

Finally, if you take the inland route to Gisborne you will see the great falls of Te Reinga. This was the scene of the death leap of Princess Rakahanga, by all accounts a maiden of surpassing charm. Her beauty was her doom, for after being courted by a very large number of suitors at one time, she was abducted by the ugliest. The pursuit that followed came to an end at the crossing above the falls. Legend has it that her greenstone ornaments lie in the pool below. This pool in the dark gorge was also, doubtless, the home of a taniwha of no mean size and power.

(From the W. W. Stewart collection.) A scene in the Railway yard at Auckland.

(From the W. W. Stewart collection.)
A scene in the Railway yard at Auckland.

The Wairoa of to-day is not the Wairoa of yesterday. No longer is it inaccessible and parochial. The town has awakened and is beckoning. Wairoa is conscious and anxious, conscious of its own importance and charm, and anxious to share with all, the settler, the visitor, the tourist, the fisherman and stalker. Wairoa is to be the gateway to Lakeland loveliness, and storied tradition and legend, with scope for the energetic, and peace for those whose desire is rest.