Whangarei township is a remarkably favourable specimen of a bush settlement. It stands on a river, and is about seventeen miles distant from the Heads. The little town occupies a flat, rendered very picturesque by the gardens about the houses, and by a surrounding amphitheatre of bush-clothed heights. There is a church, hotels, stores, schools, mills, streets and roads, even a local newspaper, to bear evidence to the energy and prosperity of the settlers.
The district round about the Whangarei waters is rich soil for the most part, mainly covered with bush in its natural condition. Settlement took place here a good many years before it was begun in the Kaipara, consequently more improvement has been effected. The pioneer farms and homesteads show a surprising amount of comfort. They have lots of grass for pasturage, and two or three thousand acres of plough-lands in the aggregate as well.
Then there are two special industries in the place. One is lime-burning, the product being sent to supply Auckland demands for it. The other is coal-mining. A mine was opened here some years ago, and was afterwards flooded and consequently closed, remaining unworked for some time. It has now again been re-opened, and is in full swing of work, though the operations are only carried out in a small way comparatively.
One would think that the road, so called, connecting two settlements of such relative importance as Whangarei and Kawa-kawa, would be a better one than it is. The distance is between forty and fifty miles, and there is no settlement between. The road is just a track, along which it is possible to ride and drive cattle. A good part of the way lies through heavy bush.
But there is really very little traffic between these places, and what there is can be best transacted by sea. It is the general fashion in a country like this. Each settlement requires water-communication with Auckland, and cares little at present for anything else. A settler makes a road down to the river, or to the settlement on the river, sufficient for his own purposes, and as short as possible. That is all he particularly wants. The necessity for roads between settlements, and to open up the back-country, only grows gradually with time. Of course in other parts of the colony, where there is not water everywhere as in the North, the case is widely different. A good road or a railway is the first and chief thing needed there.
At Kawa-kawa we are in the Bay of Islands, and consequently within the classic ground. Indeed, south-east of Kawa-kawa is the site of the famous pa of Ruapekapeka, which was a strong native fortress, constructed with a degree of skill, and science almost, that astonished military engineers.
The Kawa-kawa river gives its name to the district. There is a good deal of settlement and pioneer-farming round here and in Pakaru district, but the chief industry of the place is coal-mining. A hundred to a hundred and fifty colliery hands are employed, forming, with their families, a good nucleus of population. Manganese and cement are also mined here.
The seam is twelve and a half feet thick; and the output about three thousand tons a month. There are some half-dozen miles of railway, connecting the mine with a suitable shipping-place, near where the river joins the waters of the bay itself. A fleet of coasters is constantly employed carrying coal to Grahamstown and Auckland. Extensive coal-beds exist in many parts of the North, but Whangarei and Kawa-kawa are the only workings at present. I have seen some carbonized cocoa-nuts extracted from the Kawa-kawa mine, which prove that the cocoa-nut palm must once have grown here, though it does not now.
There is nothing particularly classic about a colliery village, however, although it may be situated in a primeval solitude, and amid woodland scenery, where axe and spade are busy converting the wilds into cultivated farms. The river winds down through grand mountainous tracts, and then we find ourselves on the bosom of the gloriously beautiful bay, the most picturesque and most romantic of all places in the North—more, the home of the first chapters of our history.