Tour the wonders of Whangaroa
Kim Webby journeys to the Far North to a beautiful place of myths, legends, tragedy and marine life.
mistreatment and retaliation was swift. When Captain Thompson and some crew ventured up river with local Ma¯ ori to view kauri, the sailors were killed and, some reports say, eaten. Then at dusk, warriors in waka attacked the Boyd.
Of the 70 onboard, four were spared, including the ship’s boy, who reportedly fed and helped Te Ara during the journey. Others to live were a mother, her baby and a 2-year-old girl. As the ship was pillaged, a musket flint ignited gunpowder and the Boyd burned. The wreck is now tapu and lies buried in sediment.
The morning after the attack, a visiting Bay of Islands chief, Te Pahi, intervened to help survivors. Later, whalers wrongly blamed Te Pahi for the killings. A revenge attack by whalers and sailors destroyed two villages and killed between 60 and 200 people.
A year earlier, the Commerce had come into Whangaroa Harbour, carrying disease, which killed many Ma¯ ori. By the time the Boyd arrived, suspicion and distrust were already high. It is a tragic example of early cultural collisions.
Whangaroa became a Wesleyan town and, on the other side of the harbour, Totara North became Catholic. Our guide points out Totara Point, where in January 1838, Bishop Jean Baptiste Francois Pompallier said New Zealand’s first mass.
Soon we travel past gun emplacements from World War II. One stands near Kingfish Lodge, and, hidden away in the harbour’s western arm, is a bunker that goes several floors underground.
Kingfish Lodge has been a fishing lodge since the 1930s and, in its time, attracted superstars, including Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, and Robin Williams.
We travel just outside the harbour to see the Arrow Rocks/Oruatemanu Island, with fossils and sediment that date back more than 250 million years.
They are a unique peek into the time before dinosaurs roamed earth and are widely studied by geologists.
Orca visit the harbour to chase stingrays, and dolphins sometimes glide these azure waters.
On land, there is also much to do and see, with excellent bush walks, and the harbourside Whangaroa Sports Fishing Club bar in which to quench your thirst and hunger.
Whangaroa Harbour has something for everyone and, on a sunny autumn day in the company of a local friend, there is no place I would rather be.
The writer was hosted by Whangaroa Harbour Tours.