Karaka Bay - Waiarohe

Karaka Bay - WaiaRohe

By The Auckland Psychogographer

The winding roads of suburban Glendowie very briefly start to resemble their western cousins in Titirangi, and eventually Riddell Road sports an offshoot - Peacock Street. At the bottom of the hill is an eclectic cluster of homemade letterboxes, and then a steep but navigable path begins the descent to Karaka Bay. On the day we visit a large fallen pohutukawa has been strapped up securely off the path, its enormous roots exposed to us.

Further on, past the first house, where there used to be a drinking fountain, there’s two benches and a commemorative plaque, marking the signing in Auckland of the Treaty of Waitangi on 4th March 1840. The plaque lists the chiefs of the Ngati Paoa and Ngati Maru tribes who met with Captain Niles of the Herald - Governor Hobson remained onboard, having suffered one of his strokes three days prior. He would however be present for a further signing on 9th July 1840 with another six chiefs. French explorer Jules Dumont d’Urville had visited in the Astrolabe in 1827, the same year that Ngapuhi were defeated here in battle by warriors from Ngati Tipa, Ngati Paoa and Ngati Maru in the last inter-tribal battle of the region. Evidence of an ancient pa site has been found here - adzes, and middens of shells.

Colonialism inevitably took hold, subdivision began, but Karaka never had the density of population to compete with the seething metropolis of St Heliers around the bend, and she’s retained a certain weatherbeaten wildness since the 19th century. Fishermen in 1925 found the body of the 6-foot leopard that had escaped from Auckland Zoo floating off the beach, and Karaka was for years home to a large white pig named Piglet.

Auckland barely thinks of this historically rich place, possibly precisely because that history is so contentious and fluid. It’s been left as a kind of counter-cultural time-capsule, sporting a small cluster of benches, freak flags, baches, and the odd avant-garde-ish contemporary home, rather than anything resembling a shop or cafe. In the best Auckland way, it is overgrown and ramshackle, a hairy cousin to the politely manicured beaches around the corner on Tamaki Drive. Inaccessibility truly shelters individuality - yet now new-builds are popping up on the cliffs, and driveways are making their way steadily closer.

A few minutes from the CBD (on a good day) Karaka Bay is rewardingly human-sized for picnickers. A diving float, a kids climbing frame, the odd runabout boat, a rough and ready playground of seashells and driftwood. Plus the outlook includes Rangitoto and the mystical Motukorea / Browns Island - an archeologically deep volcano, for 600 years occupied by Maori stone workers, farmers, fishermen and traders, tantalisingly close, just off the coast in the Hauraki Gulf. Once dotted with pa, and still fringed with shipwrecks, the island is only accessible by private boat or canoe, although the Department of Conservation occasionally runs archaeology tours.

Karaka is also important as a place to engage with the Tamaki River, which flows out to sea at this point. The river penetrates deep into south-eastern Auckland, including to Otahuhu where, via what is now Portage Road, waka were taken to the Mangere inlet and on to the Manukau harbour. A crucial way to join the Tasman Sea with the Pacific Ocean, the Tamaki has an ancient significance as a route of trade and traffic, now eclipsed. For hundreds of years, Karaka Bay must have been a far busier frontier town than today’s edition; a gently washed-up beach where you might spot a runaway leopard or meet a pig in the sand.

Image Credits: The Auckland Psychogeographer and Greg Nunes