Cover story
Auckland’s Anniversary Weekend is traditionally a time to celebrate the city’s close relationship with the ocean that enfolds it on both sides. Whether you want to take a ferry ride, explore in your boat or paddleboard, or just admire the sea from dry land, the Hauraki Gulf, known to Maori as Tıkapa Moana, has many stories to tell and special places to explore. THE ESCAPING GERMANS
Now a sanctuary undergoing habitat restoration, over its history Motuihe (full name Te Motu-aIhenga) has been a Ma¯ ori defensive site, a farm, a quarantine station, naval training base and internment site for prisoners of war.
Its most famous resident — albeit briefly — was German sea-raider Count Felix von Luckner, who, along with some of his crew, was captured in the Pacific and sent to Motuihe in 1917. The naval officer soon set about making plans to escape, collecting the necessary supplies under the guise of staging a Christmas play. They used the camp commander’s launch to escape one night in December, cutting the phone line to the mainland and setting off for Coromandel, where they flagged down and commandeered the timber scow, Moa. Despite their heroic efforts, the Germans were captured at the Kermadec Islands and returned to slightly more secure imprisonment. Von Luckner, known as “the Sea Devil”, became a bit of a folk hero and was welcomed back here in the 1930s while on a voyage sailing around the world with his wife.
Today Motuihe is a pest-free sanctuary, being replanted and repopulated with native species. White-sand Ocean Beach, on its eastern side, is also one of the most popular day anchorages in the Gulf for cruisers and day-trippers.
PADDLE YOUR OWN WAKA
For a different view of the gulf and its islands, head to the south-eastern coastline, from Beachlands to the Firth of Thames. There’s a string of regional parks along this shore — Omana, Duder, Waitawa, Tawhitokino, Tapapakanga and Waharau — which are linked by the Te Ara Moana kayak trail. This route was one of many traditionally paddled by Ma¯ ori to travel between settlements, carry goods for trade and gather food, but today you can do it for fun, camping along the way.
If that all sounds too much like hard work, hop in the car and explore the parks from the landward side, looking out on to the sheltered waters of the Tamaki Strait. As well as great views there are walks, biking trails, Ma¯ ori and European heritage sites to explore, secret beaches accessible only at low tide, and there are seldom huge crowds — except during the Splore festival at Tapapakanga, but that’s a whole different kettle of fish.
Speaking of fish, the waters inside Waiheke, especially around the mouth of the Wairoa River mouth north of Clevedon, were the favoured hunting ground of the mullet-boaters in the late
1900s. While today mullet boats are raced as a heritage class — they’ll be out on the water on Monday in the Anniversary Regatta — they have a proud working-class history.
Designed to be light, fast and manoeuvrable, to harvest the huge schools of mullet then rush them back to the markets at Auckland, the original “mulleties” were sailed by waterfront characters such as Ike Hunt, who was presumed drowned in
1887 after his boat was found overturned near Motuihe. In fact, the non-swimmer had floated ashore near what is now known as Beachlands, and had taken a couple of days to walk home to Auckland.
FINDING SANCTUARY
Today, Rotoroa is another of the “treasure islands” of the gulf, where endangered species such as the takahe¯ and t¯ıeke (saddleback) are flourishing in a predator-free environment. In 2009, the island was opened to the public as a wildlife sanctuary, funded largely by philanthropists Neal and Annette Plowman, and a native-tree planting and species translocation programme commenced.
But the island has also long provided sanctuary to humans, too. For nearly 100 years, the only way you could visit it was if you were in need of the alcohol rehabilitation services of the Salvation Army. Rotoroa was home to New Zealand’s first and longest-running addiction treatment centre, and provided respite and support for more than 12,000 patients after opening in 1911.
Visitors to the island today can learn about its sometimes sad but largely inspiring heritage at the architect-designed visitor centre before heading off around the trails to try to catch a glimpse of the island’s newer inhabitants. There are also several beautiful beaches — Ladies’ and Men’s bays still bear their names from the days of segregated bathing — plus a spectacular Chris Booth sculpture on the southern tip.
Heritage and environment also come together at Tiritiri Matangi, from where the 155-year-old lighthouse — the oldest working lighthouse in
New Zealand — still shines out its beam every night. The 21m-tall castiron structure, originally painted red, was pre-fabricated in Britain and brought out in sections and bolted together on site.
Since work began by conservationists in the 1970s, more than 280,000 trees have been planted, and the island is resuming its cloak of native forest. It’s now home to kiwi, ko¯ kako, takahe¯ and many other rare species.
BACK IN TIME
If you’ve never been to Great Barrier/Aotea, you really should. Lurking on the edge of the horizon, it stands sentinel at the outer edge of the gulf.
Visiting the Barrier is like going back in time — in a good way. Think gravel roads, generator power and acres of solitude, combined with decent coffee, epic bushwalks and a sky so full of stars the island is one of only five official Dark Sky Sanctuaries in the world (Stewart Island was also added to the list this month).
The island had a long history of Ma¯ ori occupation, but when Europeans moved in it was all about extraction and exploitation: copper, gold and silver mining, whaling and the logging of the island’s magnificent stands of kauri trees. Whangaparapara Harbour, near the airstrip at Claris, was the site of both a whaling station, which operated up until the 1960s, and a huge timber mill. Today the Tramline Track follows the route of the bush railway which was on the most extensive incline systems in the world, built during the 1920s and 30s to get the last of the big logs out of the hills.
Great Barrier has also seen its fair share of shipwrecks over the years, one of the most significant and deadly the loss of the SS Wairarapa, which drove on rocks on the northern coast of the island in thick fog in 1894. The graves of some of the victims can be visited at the northern end of wild and beautiful Whangapoua Beach, on the island’s east coast.
IN NEED OF DEFENCE
With its numerous bays and islands, the Hauraki Gulf has a lot of coastline. Ever since the first human habitation, defensive positions have been set up around its shores, from Ma¯ ori pa¯ to 19th and 20th century forts and gun emplacements.
Today it might seem like it was all a big fuss about nothing, but in 1940 the war did come to our doorstep. The German raider Orion laid a string of 200 mines “to infest the whole entry to Auckland” one night in June. Just five days later, the 160m-long Royal Mail steamer Niagara hit one off the Hen and Chickens Islands. All her passengers and crew got off safely, but she went to the bottom carrying £2.5 million worth of gold ingots and a huge supply of small-arms ammunition.
One of the best and most well-preserved defensive sites to wander around, providing grandstand views of the action on the Waitemata Harbour, is North Head (Maungauika) in Devonport. With its disappearing gun and network of tunnels, rumours persist of ammunition and even planes buried beneath its green slopes. There are also remnants of the military past on Motuihe, Motutapu (some great tunnels to explore) and Waiheke, at Stony Batter.
Sarah Ell has been named as the recipient of the NZSA Auckland Museum Research and Residency Grant. Her book, Ocean: Tales of Discovery and
Encounter that Defined New Zealand (Penguin, $70) tells the story of New Zealand’s intimate relationship with the sea over time, from myth and migration to exploitation and industry, along with the contemporary stories of those whose lives are deeply connected to the ocean today.