Taheke

Taheke River.
This river bank and the river itself, was a playground for many of us. The Taheke Hotel was built on higher ground, up to the right of this photo. In pre-European times this had been an important highway, because this was as far as travellers could go before reaching a waterfall, which is what the name Taheke refers to. This was a desirable disembarkation point however, because from this point it was a relatively easy traverse right across to Kerikeri on the eastern coast, the most direct route from the Hokianga to the Bay of Islands.

Before roads this became a small town, built as a staging post by Europeans, where travellers could change from boat to horse, carriage, or perhaps just foot, & vice versa. There was, apart from the hotel, shops and a school. William Satchel, author of The Greenstone Door, had a shop here. Once roads came through however, river traffic ceased to be so important and the town went into a population decline. Now there are no shops at all, and the school has, in more recent years, closed down. It was where I began my formal schooling.

In the late 40’s when this photo was taken, there were still Maori communities who lived in very inaccessible areas. These people relied on the horse and the river for getting around. In this case these 4 men have come to the hotel by waka, and are going home with a keg of beer.

The river was always a place of great power and mystery for me. The clear water, with fresh water mussels burrowed into the shingle, the silvery blunt-nosed mullet, the waitbait, the weeping willows trailing in beautiful parallel lines, the Maori wading along the banks groping for eels and throwing them up on the bank. There was a sense of history there. It is part of me.

Taheke- late 40’s.
In the sidebar to your right you will see a small photo of a hotel where I lived as a child. This is the view looking the other way, from an upstairs window. No tarseal, herds of cattle being driven to the works by drovers with stockwhips and dogs guiding them along. They were probably headed for Moerewa Freezing Works. Now defunct.

On the right is an old hall where my father ran a boxing gym, and locals, mostly Maori, used to come some evenings to train and enjoy themselves. There were punchbags of various description, fast skipping, sparring too. Boxing at that stage was still in some Secondary Schools but rapidly ending. Tournaments seemed common and my father, as a younger man had been a keen participant.

The hall is no longer there which is a pity. The area was depopulated after this time by the migration of Maori to other centres because of the opportunity for paid employment. Many from this area went, I think to work in the new paper mill in Tokoroa, or was it Kawerau.

This open space was often the arena for fist fights. Fisticuffs & hotels went hand-in-hand then, it was exactly like the Westerns that were such a staple of our movie diet. As a little boy I admired the cowboy’s code and this sort of event seemed quite normal. What I saw in movies looked very familiar.

This road in now tarsealed, going through and leading to settlements with names such as Kawakawa, Moerewa, Kaikohe, Opononi and Rawene and others of course, but who I hope I haven’t offended by leaving them out
! All right then. Mitimiti, Kohukohu, Waima, Waimate, Horeke, Pakaraka, Paihia, Kerikeri. In the Hokianga there don’t seem to be many towns with non-Maori names.