Takamatua - German Bay

Next door to New Zealand's richest trove of French Settler Heritage there is a dot of a place with a Maori name that dared for a short moment to be German.

Takamatua is the name of the long stream and valley that lead down to this bay and this is what Ngai Tahu called the area until the Germans arrived. They came with Captain L'Anglois and the 55 French settlers on the Comte de Paris in 1840, to take up 1000 acres the Captain had earlier secured in a 'deal with the Natives.'

There were only five German men, Breitmeyer, Hahn, Hettich, Waeckerle, Walther and Wol who came with the French settler ship, and they gravitated together to what was a very pretty bush covered bay, and took up their five acres each. At that time there were no permanent residents here near here, bar maybe a few stray European sailors who had escaped their ships earlier, including some who had managed to find themselves Maori wives. Later archaeology showed Waitaha people could have been in the bay centuries earlier.

The Germans cleared their bush, sold milled timber, which was being shipped out of Lyttelton to build the city of Sydney, then grew wheat and other crops successfully.

But just as they were settling, , English settlers flooded to Akaroa, overtaking the French, and the few Germans of Takamatua. While they had still been aboard the Comte de Paris, the Treaty of Waitangi been signed, securing New Zealand as a colony for the English.

The full story is recorded in the book Tales of Banks Peninsula by H.C. Jacobsen.

A stronghold inspired by the Wairau Incident, was built in case of conflict, 'in reserve behind beach at the centre of the bay', but nobody knows exactly where that is now. It was called the Takamatua Blockhouse and described as 'two-storey loopholed blockhouse, upper storey extending out from lower, surrounded by rectangular stockade'. It was never needed.

When cattlebeasts arrived on the return ships from Sydney, Takamatua turned to dairying and has stayed in that business since. The co-operative dairy opened in 1893. The town also used to have it's own little school, but this shut during the 1930s and the grounds became incorporated into the Domain. The War memorial gates showing the names of fallen soldiers from WW1 remain. It was after the War that German bay reverted to its original name..

Though the French and the Germans and the blockhouse are long gone, Takamatua still has Willow trees. No one has yet disputed that these Willows were planted from slips brought by the emigrants from St. Helena, taken from the tree above Napoleans grave.

Image Credits: German Bay - Akaroa, circa 1886, Akaroa, by Burton Brothers studio. Purchased 1991. Te Papa German Bay, Akaroa. From the album: Scenes of New Zealand, circa 1870, Banks Peninsula, by Daniel Mundy, Messrs F. Bradley & Co. Te Papa and Google Maps.