Kaipara; or, experiences of a settler in North New Zealand

by P. W. Barlow

The railway journey was decidedly uninteresting, the line passing through some most dreary looking country, which became more uninviting as we neared Helensville, a township only impressive by its unsightliness. It stands on a river whose discoloured waters run between two banks of mud.

"Surely my bearded friend has been indulging in unlimited quantities of the colonial amusement known as 'gassing,'" I thought; and feeling very much tempted to return to Auckland, I expressed my opinion to my companion pretty freely.

"I fully expected some remarks of the kind—fully expected them," he replied. "That wretched journey to Helensville is in a great measure responsible for so little being known of the North Kaipara. People come up as far as here, and are so disgusted that they turn back. Wait, however, till we have crossed the Kaipara Harbour, and then give me your opinion. I fancy it will have undergone a change, sir. Yes; I rather fancy so. All I ask you is to wait."

We slept that night at an hotel near the railway station, and were aroused from our slumbers about three o'clock in the morning, and told to "hurry up," as the boat was ready to start. After hasty ablutions, therefore, we struggled into our clothes, and speedily transferred ourselves to the deck of the Kina, a screw steamboat of fifty-three tons register, which was making noise enough with her horrible whistle and horn for a two thousand tonner.

We steamed away between the mud banks, which gradually widened out, and at last disappeared altogether as the Kaipara Harbour was reached. This we crossed in about two hours, and steered for one of the many armlets of this inland sea, which intersect the Kaipara district in so peculiar a manner.

The formation of the Northern Kaipara is indeed remarkable, and looks as though the land at some distant period had cracked and opened from the harbour in different directions, allowing the sea to rush in and form the beautiful creeks which everywhere abound. While crossing the harbour, my opinion, as prophesied by my companion and guide, began to undergo a change. The scenery there was very pretty; but when we were fairly in the armlet, which leads with many windings and turns to Pahi and Matakohe, I became thoroughly charmed. The virgin forests were there true enough—the native trees reaching to the very water's edge, with their hanging branches kissing its placid surface. Ferns in numberless variety—ranging from the gigantic tree fern with stem of twenty feet down to the dainty maiden hair, together with Nikau and cabbage palms—fringed the banks, and mingled with the darker green of the pohutukawa and other trees: at times bold grass-crowned bluffs of sand or lime stone met our view, giving place again to lovely little bays with bright shelly beaches and grassy slopes: ever and anon on either shore one caught glimpses of neat wooden houses, peeping out of nests of pine and gum trees, and surrounded by green fields of waving manuka—a background of high forest-covered hills completing the picture.

I was enraptured. After my recent experience of New Zealand scenery it appeared to me perfection, and I was prepared fully to indorse my companion's remark that the North Kaipara was a place worth living in.

The water teemed with fish, which were jumping in every direction, while birds of various kinds, including duck, teal, shags, eel-hawks, and flocks of godwit and red-shanked plover, added further life to the scene.

At last the township of Pahi—where my friend resided—was reached, and on the steamer mooring to the wharf we landed.

I was most hospitably entertained for a couple of days, and introduced to many of the settlers residing in the locality; and on the third day a visit to the gentleman with whom my companion had arranged I should spend a short time was undertaken. We left Pahi in a flat-bottomed punt, about fifteen feet long, painted black, and possessing an uncomfortable resemblance to a coffin with the lid off. The forward thwart, in which I noticed a split, was pierced for a mast; there was a seat about the centre of the boat for the rower, and another in the stern. Two large tubs and a package containing the German preserving preparation occupied the fore part of the cranky concern, while our portmanteaus were placed in the stern, and with a pair of sculls and a broken oar, to which a small sail was attached, completed the equipment. With some misgiving I stepped in, and we pushed off.