Cape Reinga School to close

A Houhora man dropped in on his old home on Sunday afternoon, when Bill Evans, now of Whangarei, jumped from a Kaitaia Aero Club Cessna with a fellow parachutist from the South Island, landing on the foreshore at the heads.

The club’s chief instructor, Mr. Brian Childs, flew the two to Houhora about 4.30 p.m. Before the jump a marker was set down, and it fell into a boat in which Mr. Fred Housham was fishing at the harbour mouth.

However, the pair did not follow it. Bill landed on his feet on the pipi bank and his friend in front of Mr. W. Wagener’s house. These were the two most northern jumps recorded in New Zealand, New Zealand’s northernmost school — the tiny Cape Reinga School — is to be closed down at the end of the current school term.

The building will be used in future as an information centre for the Lands and Survey Department, it was reported on Wednesday.

With only four pupils just now, the Cape Reinga School is probably the smallest in the country. Yet when the present teacher, Mr. J.P.F. Hyndman, first took up station there in 1965 there were 13 children of school-age.

Changes among keepers at the lighthouse have meant the reduction of the roll since then.

From next year the pupils will be on correspondence courses, for no transport is available to take them daily from Cape Reinga to the nearest school at Te Kao. Department of Education buses based there run only as far north as Parengarenga.

Mr. Hyndman’s cottage was renovated only last year by the Marine Department.

Standing 622 feet above sea level, the school was a source of much interest to tourists who visited New Zealand’s most northerly land-based manned lighthouse.

— October 4, 1968 Two hundred pineapple tops of a hardy strain have been planted as an experiment at Ahipara. They will soon be joined by a number of special banana plants, and could prove to be as successful as Kaitaia’s outdoor mushroom industry.

While visiting Brisbane recently, Mr. L. P. Kernot compared its temperature and rainfall figures with those of Kaitaia, and agriculture officials he consulted agreed the pineapples and bananas could possibly be grown here successfully.

Permission was obtained to import the special plants, and the result is the present 10-acre plantation.

With Mr. Kernot in the venture are Mr. M.C. Cooper, Mr. B.K. Gale, Mr. A. Bax, Mr. R. D. West and Dr. L. H. Johns.

“We feel that with the provision of adequate shelter, a lot of things could be grown at Ahipara,”said Mr. Kernot yesterday. “It could become quite an attraction, like Glenfalloch in Dunedin.”

— October 18, 1968 A most successful Hallowe’en party was held on Saturday evening by the Kaitaia Scottish Society. The evening was in the hands of Mr. and Mrs. E. W.