Open Writing

We have spent some time in Golden Bay, so, before we leave it, let's find out what brought the early settlers to the Bay in the first place.

In my poem "Golden Bay by-passed," I talked of "the ancient piers" why were these built? Let's take a closer look.

In actual fact Golden Bay was not the first place to be settled. It was that out of the way place Westhaven Inlet. But long before the white man came the Maori were here. We won't concern ourselves with Maori history for the moment; we will stay with the white man.

Sealers and whalers had visited New Zealand before any official
colonisation and it was a sealer, David Bennett, in the Harriet, who took the first load of coal out of Westhaven, in 1836. Westhaven had its Maori population, but the coal drew the white man there.

By 1866 the Westhaven Coal mining was in operation, flax mills were hard at work, timber was being felled and sawmills were in operation, as land was being cleared for farming, and, in 1862, gold was discovered in Salty Creek and the Anatori river. The Westhaven jetty, now derelict, except for a few crayfish boats, tying up to its decaying piers, was crowded with ships waiting to take the products out from the tramways, built across the swamps, to the harbour. Our sleepy little backwater, now a farming area, was a hive of industry with a school, shops and a village hall. It was all
happening then.

Meanwhile, the New Zealand Company, back in Britain, had pre sold land to would be settlers. They arrived in Nelson, on the Fifeshire, in 1842. The poor souls became squatters and began to "champ at the bit," as the New Zealand Company failed to allocate them the land they had been promised.

In 1842 William Tuckett was dispatched by the NZ Company to survey land west of Nelson. With Maori guides and in Maori canoes he sailed across Nelson bay and around the Abel Tasman peninsula, now the haven of kayakers and trampers. Once round the headland he entered the fertile Golden Bay. Soon others found a way over the hill and development was underway but so was exploration as Heaphy, in 1846, began his epic search for a route to the West Coast. The Heaphy track is one of our well known walking tracks, and closely follows his route.

But back in Golden Bay things were starting to happen. The valuable hard wood timber was being felled to make way for agricultural land. Saw mills were set up and the Waitapu wharf, near Takaka, was built, in 1856, to ship out the timber and other goods, and a small township developed. The wharf is still there and in use as a fishing wharf, with a deep freeze plant, for fishing is one of the main industries of the Bay. It is a busy little place and a bonny little place, but the main town Takaka, was built further east, due to a grant of land by Haldene. So, from 1850, saw-milling and farming
were underway in the Bay.

In 1857 the first gold was found in the Aorere River and "Gold Fever" sawrapid development. Collingwood was founded on the gold rush and so expansion continued.

Coal had already been extracted from Westhaven and now was discovered at Puponga, in the western corner of Golden Bay. Puponga thrived. A total of three wharves were built, the first two collapsing, the third was over two miles long and stretched half a mile out into deep water in the bay. Trains pulled chains of coal buckets, from the mine, to be emptied into the waiting ships.

Puponga grew and had a school, shops and a hotel, but by 1917 the mine was considered too dangerous to work and was closed down. It
opened again briefly in 1953 but its time was short lived and now that long jetty is a series of rotting posts, stretching out into the bay, providing a breeding haven for the famous green-lipped mussels, and most of the people have long since left.

Meanwhile, further east, at Onekaka, iron ore was found. In 1920 the
Onekaka Iron and Steel Company was set up and in 1922 the first molten metal was tapped from its furnaces. The Onekaka wharf, 300 metres long was built to bring in the ships full of coal for the blast furnaces and to take out the pig iron. The industry boomed and at one time produced the cheapest pig iron in the world. However the bottom fell out of the iron market, when an enterprising Australian industrial magnate, by the name of Walter Hume, discovered that cheap piping could be made by mixing cement with steel with
the help of asbestos. In 1935 the works closed and the jetty became on of those ancient decaying piers and the iron works was reclaimed by the bush.

By 1860 the gold rush had ended, with the discovery of more lucrative fields in Otago and on the West Coast but the Bay still grew. There was the timber, the coal, the iron and the ever expanding farms, with their dairy herds and fruit and vegetables, plus the marble from the hills and dolomite from Parapara. A further jetty was built at Tarakohe to ship out the marble. Wool, hops butter and other produce were being exported from the
Collingwood area, via the Waitapu wharf. Dairies had been set up in
Bainham, Rockville and Kaituna, later to be consolidated into the Golden Bay Dairy Factory, in Takaka.

The Dairy Company is now a large industry, with milk coming, not only from Golden Bay but from as far south as Murchison, as the milk tankers trundle back and forth over the hill on the now tar-sealed road.

So despite set backs, expansion continued, which brings me to a little story. Asbestos had been prospected for in the Cobb valley as early as 1897, and, from 1914 to 1951, an old prospector, Henry Chaffey, by name, and his bride Annie lived in the old asbestos prospecting cottage. He loved solitude and spent his days searching for gold and other minerals.

His dear wife liked to keep up standards and any would be visitor would have to loudly announce their approach so that Annie could be ready for them in her best dress, sitting, like a lady, behind the bone china tea service.

Henry began to tell folk about the vast amounts of asbestos in the area and it came to the ears of Walter Hume, in Australia, yes, the same Walter Hume who was instrumental in closing down the Onekaka Ironworks. He needed a steady supply of asbestos, so he sent his prospectors over.

There was plenty there but no access road. How would you get the stuff out? Hume persuaded the people of Nelson, who were keen to have an electricity supply, that the Cobb valley was the ideal place for a Hydro Scheme.

Construction got under way and, lo and behold, the access road to the dam just happened to be very convenient for the transport of the mined asbestos. Hume had his mine under way but poor old Henry lost the solitude he so cherished.

With all this asbestos and the marble in the mountains the
next logical thing to do was build a cement works near the Tarakohe jetty. The industry boomed but in 1964 asbestos mining ended and the cement works closed in the 1980's.

What a history and what a lot of things have been going on in our quiet little back water. Now the Bay thrives on its farming and its dairy industry plus a very lucrative aquaculture, with the shell fish from the bay being brought in by tractor over the mud flats and the bigger fishing boats, seen out on the horizon, bringing in their catches to the Waitapu wharf. Dolomite is still a big export, going out from the Tarakohe wharf, and a yachting marina is being developed in the same area.

With the advent of the sealed road over the hill, the tourist is finding his way here and the trampers and kayakers reach it via the Abel Tasman walkway and the Heaphy Track.

The potters, painters, artists and writers add their own little bit to the economy and the future looks bright for Golden Bay.

May the sun always shine on it, for it is a special place.

As a historian I would love to write a book about each aspect of the Bay's history and find out about some of its interesting characters. As a columnist I can only scratch the surface and leave the rest to your imagination as you think of those enterprising settlers.