Looking back at
3 — A father has delivered an emotional apology for failing his son at a course graduation at Ngawha.
5 — Three youths try to rob Kaitaia’s North Road Dairy at gunpoint, police warning that the dairy’s CCTV cameras are so sophisticated that robbers “will be pinged”. The Whangaroa Health Services Trust is in turmoil following the resignations of its CEO, chair and a number of clinical staff. The death of a kiwi on Long Beach, Russell, is blamed on a dog, driving kiwi advocates to despair.
8 — Reports of a boat on fire in Rangaunu Harbour turn up to be more smoke than flames, thanks to a blown head gasket or possibly water in the fuel.
9 — The bodies of two extremely rare pygmy right whales, an adult and a juvenile, are found washed up on the beach at Taupo Bay. They will be flensed and buried.
10 — Clean Waters to the Sea and Mangonui School have collaborated to develop a system of cleaning wastewater that has been adopted by Mangonui Haulage.
12 — Te Rarawa announces that it is to begin erecting fences to protect dunes and other ecologically vulnerable sites at Ahipara from motorbikes and offroad vehicles. The public reaction ranges from outrage to applause. Nurses and midwives walk off the job at Kaitaia Hospital in support of a national strike.
17 — A proposal to establish a kauri sanctuary near Kerikeri is mooted, as kauri dieback disease continues to spread.
19 — A Kaikohe avocado grower reckons thieves have stolen 70 per cent of his crop, months before it was ready for picking. Scammers are using Coastguard Bay of Islands’ name in a bid to part people from their money. 26 — Houhora man Jackson Stancich reckons there is 85 tonnes of rubbish on 90 Mile Beach. Opononi residents fear the Manea Heritage Centre, which has government funding, will be a “total nightmare” for the tiny community.
24 — Former Far North mayor Wayne Brown, who is complaining of consent delays, labels the district council “vindictive and nasty”. The Northland DHB is looking at providing joint replacement surgery at Kaitaia Hospital. Nothing has happened by year’s end.
31 — Switzer Home health care assistant Juliet Garcia and her husband appear to have lost all hope of remaining in New Zealand when her work visa expires in 2019. Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni says the Te Hiku collaboration between police and iwi, Whiria te Muka, sets a new national benchmark for reducing family harm. 2 — The congregation at St Clement’s Church, Ahipara, is setting out to raise $150,000 to launch a $350,000 repair and restoration bill. St John in Kaitaia has taken delivery of a brand new ambulance, bought with a bequest from Kaitaia woman Helena Girdler, who died in January at the age of 97. 3 — A student is stabbed in one ear and several staff are injured when a mob of teenagers invade Northland College.
4 — Kaitaia Aero Club instructor Jim Summerfield receives a Federation Aeronautique Internationale award in recognition of his contribution to aviation.
5 — Chris Swannell presides over a service at Russell’s Christ Church as the first man in an openly gay relationship to be ordained as an Anglican priest.
9 — Waipapa B&B 88 Lodge had been admitted to TripAdvisor’s Hall of Fame for consistently high customer ratings.
10 — A private cancer clinic opens in Whanga¯rei.
14 — A 12-month-old child was the first to benefit from medical expertise from Whanga¯rei via the telehealth technology at Bay of Islands Hospital. Doubtless Bay man Bob Vartan is urging people to tell their doctors all after vague symptoms led to the discovery of two bowel tumours. The Northland Regional Council is setting out to trap escaped or illegally released red-eared slider turtles around the region. 15 — A Waipapakauri Ramp man escapes unscathed, via a bedroom window, when his rented home goes up in flames. Primary and Intermediate teachers take to Kaitaia’s main street in a show of protest over their pay and conditions, along with thousands of other teachers around the country. 16 — The Far North District Council and Northland Forest Managers have agreed to restrictions on log truck movements through Kerikeri. 18 — Operation Flotation, the Doubtless Bay community’s response to January’s drowning of a 54-year-old man at Cable Bay, is launched with the placing of flotation devices at Taipa, Cable Bay and Cooper’s Beach.
21 — NEST’s chief pilot, Peter Turnbull, has been recognised for his contribution to the development of aviation in New Zealand. Opua State Forest’s kiwi population has risen from five to 11 in two years. A former employee has been charged with defrauding the Waitangi National Trust to the tune of $1.2 million.
23 — The Puketi Forest Trust is thrilled to spot a North Island robin known as Yob, which at the age of at least 10 has achieved more than three times the expected life span. Kaitaia’s first paataka kai (food cupboard) opens outside Mana House in North Rd, offering free food to those who are struggling and inviting others to contribute what they have spare.
25 — A threat by hordes of motorcyclists to converge on Ahipara to ‘Take back the beach’ in response to Te Rarawa’s fencing of 4km of sand dunes does not eventuate.
28 — Norm (of the North) Bryan, described by mayor John Carter as an icon of the Far North, dies at the age of 79 after a very brief illness. Work on replacing the buildings at Oturu School with new ones, and the addition of a school hall, is well under way. 4 — Mycoplasma bovis has been found in a Northland beef herd, reportedly in the Kaipara. A group of Paihia residents have launched a campaign to put an end to random violence, often targeting tourists, in Kings Rd. 6 — DoC and hapu are about to begin a 1080 aerial drop over Russell Forest and Cape Brett. The Te Paki track is one of three being considered for addition to New Zealand’s Great Walk network.
8 — Far North opponents of 1080 join nationwide protests against its continued use.
9 — A 194-year-old oak tree, New Zealand’s oldest, planted by missionary Richard Davis, is toppled by wind at Waimate North (pictured page 14).
10 — Yvonne and Andrew Eason are back from the annual Totalspan conference, with the Franchise of the Year and three other awards to add to the nine they had already won since buying the Kaitaia franchise in 2012. 11 — Juken New Zealand announces plans to upgrade its triboard mill in Kaitaia to restore it to profitability. Northland MP Matt King’s private member’s bill, that would make causing death by a ‘coward’s punch’ a specific offence, has been drawn from the parliamentary ballot.
14 — Simon Allan kindly demonstrates the fog machine at gas Cooper’s Beach.
17 — A 46-year-old woman is charged with the murder of 57-year-old Richard Bristow in Moerewa. Donna Awatere Huata is named at a Ma¯ori Carbon Foundation hui in Kaitaia as the first Ma¯ori Climate Commissioner.
18 — The Kai Matariki Trust is named as the supreme winner at the Trustpower Far North community awards. A sluggish response to Kaitaia Intermediate School’s Labour Weekend reunion has the organisers considering abandoning it. Kerikeri Retirement Village announces expansion plans to cater for a ‘silver tsunami.’
20 — The Oruru Inland Valleys Association vows to continue fighting to save the Swamp Palace, despite a distinct lack of enthusiasm on the part of the Far North District Council.
21 — An 82-year-old Kerikeri man is bashed and dumped on the side of the road by two hitchhikers who then take his car. Two 17-year-olds will be charged, while a 15-year-old, who led police on a 30km pursuit, is charged with receiving the car.
24 — The Ma¯ori Land Court
August
September
rejects an injunction against aerial 1080 drops over. The applicants say the decision will be appealed, but the drops are completed.
25 — Open The Curtains (ANT Trust) signs a five-year lease on Kaitaia’s Tangonge Park, which it plans to develop significantly, with the Far North District Council. The family of Kaitaia woman Traceza Urlich, not seen since February, reject a psychic’s claims that she has been murdered and buried near a red barn, possibly in the Peria area.
29 — Colin Mercer and Logan Taylor are the 16th and 17th members of the Mangonui Fire Brigade to be awarded gold stars for 25 years’ service.
30 — A 24-year-old Kaikohe man suffers a stab wound to the stomach when he is attacked by a group of youths, hours after a number of tourists are confronted, two of them reportedly being assaulted. Some 16,000 litres of milk is spilled on SH1 at Umawera when a tanker driver loses his trailer after taking evasive action to avoid an oncoming car.
October
4 — Pizza Hut is looking to open a franchise in Kaitaia. Kaitaia doctor Ricky Bell is attracting international attention with his PhD research into obesity.
5 — A new youth remand service, Mahuru, is launched in Kaikohe.
9 — Sovrano Limoncello has won two more gold medals in competition in Chicago, reaffirming its reputation as one of the best liqueurs in the world. Regional councillor Mike Finlayson appears to be fit and well after drinking a cup of tea made with water from a stream in Russell State Forest where he found 1080 pellets after an aerial drop a few days earlier.
11 — Northland College is appealing for the return of its near-new tractor, worth up to $100,000, which has been stolen and was last seen heading in the direction of Taheke. It turns up at Waima, only a little worse for wear. Karikari Peninsula locals take their protest against longliners and scallop boats on to the water. A former scallop fisherman from Whanga¯rei says there has been no scallop fishing in Rangaunu/Doubtless Bay for some years.
13 — Mangamuka teenager Charlotte Chapman-Kete is crowned Miss Far North 2018. 15 — A ‘mess’ on the beach at Aurere is being tested, but the Far North District Council rejects speculation that it is raw sewage from the treatment plant at Taipa.
18 — A Chilean national is sentenced to four months’ home detention on two convictions of aggravated careless driving causing death and one of causing injury on Houhora Heads Rd in May.
20 — Kaitaia Intermediate school’s reunion begins, celebrating 50 years (and a little more; from 1962 to 1967 it was part of Kaitaia Primary).
23 — Switzer Residential Care manager Jackie Simkins fears that staffing problems, exacerbated by immigration rules and the registered nurse pay gap between aged care and DHBs, could see the home close its hospital wing. The first of 75 tags, attached to mako sharks in New Caledonia to track their travels, has turned up on 90 Mile Beach.
25 — Willow-Jean Prime’s Youth MP for 2019, Taipa Area School student Shiquille Duval, is determined to address the scourge of methamphetamine. The organisers of the Kerikeri International Piano Competition are pondering whether the event has become too big for the town to host.
30 — Northland MP Matt King joins the chorus of outrage over Immigration Minister Iain LeesGalloway’s granting of residence to a convicted drug smuggler and illegal immigrant from Czechoslovakia when he refuses to consider much more deserving candidates. 1 — Shannon Edwards has emulated Sam Yates to win two northern region secondary school services academy leadership awards for Kaitaia College in successive years. DoC says independent testing of water in and around Russell State Forest shows no trace of 1080 after the September 28 drop.
3 — Otaua farmer’s daughter Patricia Clark wins the Miss Five Crowns New Zealand Legacy Princess title in Auckland. 5 — Seven people are injured in a two-car crash on the SH10/ Taupo Bay Rd intersection. 7 — A 24-year-old German tramper is described as lucky to be alive after straying a mile from the Te Araroa Trail in Raetea Forest and falling down a waterfall.
8 — The Northland DHB issues a warning to be watchful for meningococcal disease symptoms after six cases, three of them fatal, in the region.
9 — GP Dr Cecil Williams, who plans to spend more time with his family but won’t be leaving Kaitaia, is farewelled by Te Hiku Hauora. Senior Sergeant Geoff Ryan and his wife, Detective Paula Drewery, are farewelled by their Kaitaia police colleagues before returning to Taranaki.
11 — A well-attended public meeting at Taipa makes it clear that the district council is expected to make good on years of deferred maintenance of the O¯ ruru Hall. The fire siren and motorbikes make plenty of noise in Kaitaia in celebration of the armistice that ended WWI.
12 — Police are investigating two more armed robberies of dairies in Waipapa and Kaikohe. 15 — Kaikohe’s ATC unit has received the RSA’s national community service award. A number of residents in and around Kaitaia have spotted kaka in their gardens, after an absence of many years.
18 — Top Energy’s planned nine-hour outage is barely noticed by thousands of Kaitaia customers, whose lights are kept on by generators.
20 — Principal Rural Fire Officer Myles Taylor warns that typical November winds are raising the fire risk.
22 — Maaka McKinney, originally from Rawene, has been named the NZ Defence Force Volunteer of the Year. DoC is siding with Forest and Bird in opposing a peat mining proposal at Kaimaumau.
23 — A 30-tonne sperm whale dies after stranding on Tokerau Beach. Armed police make one arrest in what is understood to be a drug raid at a Cooper’s Beach address.
24 — Kaitaia’s former CFO Colin Kitchen receives his second Gold Star for 50 years’ service as a firefighter.
26 — A massive effort to save a small pod of killer pygmy whales that comes ashore on 90 Mile Beach, including transporting the survivors to Rarawa Beach for refloating, will fail.
December
4 — Opito Bay residents are enraged by the discovery that pohutukawa trees on the foreshore have been deliberately poisoned.
6 — Kaikohe residents are urged to conserve water as Waikotihi Puna, a spring of great significance to the local hapu, shows signs of drying up.
7 — A large pod of common dolphins, apparently fleeing the bottlenose dolphins that were hunting them, is saved from stranding on Tokerau Beach by locals and others.
8 — A nine-year, $12 million revamp of Russell’s Duke of Marlborough Hotel has officially been completed.
13 — Police are urging Far Northerners to look out for tourists after a mini spate of assaults and robberies in Kerikeri and Paihia.
15 — Kerikeri spear fisherman Kevin Lloyd beats off an aggressive mako shark off the Cavallis, and lands his kingfish. 16 — Ninety-five-year-old Jim Morgan’s 12-year-old dog Sandy is mauled by a pack of six dogs, just as they are ending their morning walk in Kaikohe. This time the little dog, which has been attacked three times before, doesn’t survive. Meanwhile, the district council has destroyed a dog that attacked a woman in Kaitaia.
17 — Two men convicted in connection with the landing of half a tonne of methamphetamine on 90 Mile Beach in 2016 have been jailed for more than 20 years. 20 — Staff and residents join forces to stage a lively Christmas production at Switzer Residential Care.
23 — A police/MPI checkpoint at Ahipara scores a 100 per cent offending rate by those who have been gathering paua at Tauroa Point.
24 — Ahipara’s tiny NZ dotterel population is hatching its chicks early this year, but the survival rate will quickly halve to three.
November