Getting around in a land without roads


These days, heading north over the Auckland Harbour Bridge, it’s sometimes hard to imagine that when the SHALIMAR arrived in the Waitemata in December 1859, the North Shore was very sparsely populated and beyond that the map was practically blank. There were no real roads and certainly no bridges: Maori were familiar with a network of foot tracks and the very early Pakeha settlers had used these tracks as bridle paths. However, they were often impassable in winter and seldom wide enough for pulling a cart, let alone a dray laden with of a settler family’s precious belongings. The most practical way north then was by sea, often combined with a great deal of walking. For settlement on the east coast north of Auckland, the most practical routes where by sea to Mahurangi, Mangawhai, Russell and Whangaroa. The SHALIMAR passengers who settled in the Taraire Valley near Kaeo bought their land sight unseen in Auckland after perusing Charles Heaphy’s drawings in the Land Office. They took the schooner Kiwi from Auckland to Whangaroa: in those days it was a bustling settlement where the settlers would have found a guide to accompany them through the bush to their land. Settlers heading to the Kaipara Harbour had three options for getting there. The first was to take the schooner to Mahurangi for the lower reaches of the harbour, or to Mangawhai for the more northern inlets of the Kaipara. From Mangawhai there was a well-defined portage trail that Maori had used for generations, crossing over to Kaiwaka and the sliver of water that is one of the most easterly reaches of the Kaipara. Water transport in these narrow upper reaches was largely tide-dependent, and reduced to craft not much bigger than a canoe, but it provided access to places like Pati, Matakohe and Albertville. A second option, for destinations in the south of the Kaipara Harbour, was to travel by boat to the westernmost reach of the Waitemata, to Riverhead. From here there was a roughly 20 kilometre track through to the navigable stretch of the Kaipara River at Helensville. By far the most hazardous way of reaching the Kaipara Harbour was to travel south from Auckland to Onehunga and embark there for a voyage out over the Manukau bar, up the west coast and into the Kaipara Harbour over its equally treacherous bar. Even when steam took over from sailing vessels, the voyage was still so dangerous that by the late 1860s the settlers were demanding proper roads to link them, and more critically their produce, to the markets in Auckland.
However the settlers chose to travel north, the land was so sparsely populated that they can only be admired for their grit and determination. After living in relatively busy towns and villages in Britain and probably fairly close to their families, and then having been packed in close proximity to their fellow passengers for over three months on the ship, moving to complete isolation must have been extremely daunting, no matter how great their sense of adventure. A highlight of their rural life would have been the arrival of letters from ‘Home’. Around the Kaipara Harbour letters were delivered by boat thanks to a monthly postal service. Shalimar passenger Andrew BONAR had settled in Kaukapakapa with his wife Elizabeth, son William and brother John. Seeing a need to keep the various isolated settlements somehow in touch with each other, he and a handful of other enterprising settlers began a cutter service around the more north-easterly reaches of the Kaipara Harbour as early as 1862 – just two years after his arrival in New Zealand. Further north, the post was delivered in a similar way. It arrived at for example Mangawhai or Whangaroa by boat from Auckland and was delivered out to the settlers by a postman who covered vast distances on foot or horseback if he was lucky.
Further reading:
Non-fiction:        Tall Spars, Steamers and Gum - the Kaipara 1854-1947 by Wayne RYBURN
                            Seven Lives on Salt River by Dick SCOTT
                            The Rock and the Sky – the story of Rodney County by H MABBETT
                            In Praise of our Post Office – Kaeo and Whangaroa’s nerve centres since 1857
by Fiona CRAIG
Fiction:                 The Story of a New Zealand River by Jane MANDER 
(Jane mander wasthe daughter of Shalimar passenger Janet KERR and her husband Francis Mander)
                              Yates' Landing by Kate STIRLING

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

From Edinburgh to the Kaipara Harbour - Andrew James and Elizabeth Frances BONAR

On the day in early summer, 1863, when Daniel Manders Beere called to take their photos, Andrew and Elizabeth Bonar had been in New Zealand for just on 4 years. For the photo Andrew wore a light coloured suit – trousers, buttoned waistcoat and open jacket   – with a black shirt and black bow tie. Really quite dashing. Elizabeth chose a full-length dress in a light-weight fabric – it looks like seersucker. The dress has quite wide sleeves that reach to just below the elbow and Elizabeth’s arms are covered by the cuffs of a white lace garment that she is wearing under the dress. A white lace collar and a white bonnet complete the outfit. Although there is a bench seat on the verandah, Andrew and Elizabeth are seated on dining chairs, positioned at the top of the steps up to the front door of their home in Kaukapakapa, a short distance from the southern shores of the Kaipara Harbour, where they settled following their arrival in Auckland in December 1859. Andrew is seated casually, wit
Read more

An ambush brings family tragedy

Image
Almost midway between Papakura and Waiuku, Glenbrook Road dips down to cross a bridge over the upper reaches of the Taihiki River, a southern inlet of Auckland’s Manukau Harbour. On the Papakura side of the bridge, and just a few steps down from the roadside, a white picket fence surrounds a small cemetery. Of the handful of early settlers named on the memorial stone plaque, Private Jas (James) Dromgool, Mauku Forest Rifles, was the older brother of Charles Dromgool, my maternal grandfather’s father. (The plaque incorrectly gives James’s death as September 1863: it should be November 1863). Taihiki River bridge, on Glenbrook Road, about 15km east of Waiuku and about 2km west of the Kingseat-Patumahoe roundabout. November 2018. James Dromgool, born in Co Louth, Ireland in July 1843, was the eldest child of John and Susan Dromgool. When John and Susan and their eight children (Anne had died as an infant in 1852) arrived in Auckland on the SHALIMAR in December 1859, Su
Read more

A very versatile man

When the SHALIMAR left Liverpool bound for Auckland in September 1859, there were probably as many reasons for facing the perils of the 100+-day voyage and the uncertainties of settling in a new land as there were adult passengers on board. Undoubtedly, the occupations with which the passengers embarked weren’t necessarily what they would end up doing when they reached New Zealand. Edward Leyland is an intriguing example. Born in Yorkshire in 1828 or 1830, he was one of 4 sons employed by their father in his prosperous woollen mill in Halifax. In the English census of 1851, Edward is a ‘worsted spinner and manufacturer’. He married Emma Hughes in 1855 and they had two sons before Edward decided to come to New Zealand. As often happened, he came alone, presumably to check out the best place to settle and to get established. Emma and the children arrived on the Queen of the North in July 1862. I wonder if he took his family to where he was living in Hunua when he had registered to v
Read more