Onerahi's past is riddled with fascinating quirks and intriguing tales. Photo / File
Onerahi's past is riddled with fascinating quirks and intriguing tales. Photo / File
It's hard to imagine our stomping ground once belonging to those before us. Even when you see the black-and-white photos of unsmiling people dressed in old-fashioned clothing flanked by patient horses.
But then, in the background, you spot the top of an existing Art Deco building or familiar coastline and it's believable.
The True Tales of Onerahi has been a coffee table fixture for the past year or so and on my to-do list of books to read. A coffee table book often becomes part of the furniture — unnoticed — and this was certainly the case until I was asked to provide an article for the second edition and decided I'd better do some research on style. I picked it up and, let's just say, it's done my insomnia no favours.
The content is just riveting and, as I only get the chance to read at night, many a time I've picked up my phone to Google Map a mentioned address to pinpoint its location and have a clearer understanding of where these stories took place.
The sign on the road to Onerahi near the site of the old money factory.
As well as gaining much more knowledge on the area and its early inhabitants, I recognised many family friends' names as well as discovering one of the Girl Guides pictured on the front cover was my mother. Inside was also an article by my uncle about his early days.
I wish my nana and poppa were still around to question their memories. Did they know these people? For example, local legend Harry Handforth, one of the first Onerahi settlers, who seems to be responsible for much development on the peninsula and who Handforth St is named after.
In Harry's later years, he would take a daily walk to the Domain Rd shops, behind where the airport now is. In the 1950s, my mum's family moved to an avenue off Domain Rd for my poppa to start his job as the airport superintendent. Did their paths cross? Unfortunately, my nana passed just one year before publication so I can only wonder.
Most days my family are regaled with my learnings: "Did you know, one family of children used to take an hour to get to school, having milked the cows first, and then all riding on the one bike with one peddling, one sitting on the back using his bare feet on the wheel as a brake and another perched on the handlebars ringing the bell warning oncoming traffic or pedestrians because of their dodgy braking system?"
Spectators on the foreshore at Onerahi waterfront, Whangarei Harbour, 1920. The boats are part of a regatta being held on the harbour. PHOTO/Drummond/Te Wake supplementary collection
There's been so many yarns that have resonated, like the British baker who gained a job on a new liner being built. The new vessel was behind schedule so he took one last voyage on his former liner but clashed with the new head baker who had been hired to replace him.
As a result, he jumped ship in New Zealand, and, instead sent for his wife and child and started a bakery in Onerahi. Meanwhile, the liner he was meant to have started his new job on began its ill-fated maiden voyage bound for New York. It was the Titanic.
Looking out over the calm, glassy waters, it's still hard to imagine that Rat Island, near Limestone Island, was once a plume of smoke from explosives as the RNZAF Onerahi squadron practised bombings for the threatening arrival of the advancing Japanese invaders. It's hard to imagine Limestone Island was once a thriving settlement.
Likewise, across the harbour where Onerahi's focal point was the wharf and railway station. One photo showed hundreds and hundreds of people gathered along the foreshore!
But thanks to people's recordings, I now know this all happened and have a new appreciation of my stomping ground. I think I know the reason I keep discovering large rocks or stones in the bush I've been clearing on my property (and now that it seems it was once part of a peach orchard, possibly the reason I'm constantly finding peach stones!)
Similarly, I have always wondered why there are loquat trees growing randomly in bush behind the airport and assumed it was from passing motorists throwing their pips out the window. Having found out the people in Whangarei often had baches along the Onerahi foreshore and some of their gardens still remain, I am now wondering if this is the reason.
I have learned who made those delicious bright red toffee apples we'd look forward to every year at my 'nana's gala day' at St Stephen's Church. I know the origins of street names and the history behind some of the houses.
I'm not sure Harry Handforth would be too impressed with how some of the pockets in his beloved area have evolved, but certainly his legacy lives on in others.
When our elderly regale us with tales from back in their day, listen and record it or else it will be taken to the grave and we will be left forever wondering.
■As a result of the popularity of True Tales of Onerahi, Heritage Trails of Onerahi brochures were launched late last year.
The brochures feature two different routes plotted with checkpoints of the historical locations mentioned in the book and can be obtained at both Whangarei Central and Onerahi libraries and Onerahi Airport.
The True Tales series of books can be purchased from book stores and other locations.
