Fire scorches piece of fishing history

By CLAIRE TREVETT

Whangaroa fisherman Stu remembers standing at his dad's elbow as a boy 20 years ago, listening to him spin fishing yarns at the local hotel.

On Wednesday evening, the man who wanted to be known only as Stu was at the same bar when the historic Marlin Hotel was nearly gutted by fire.

The hotel's taps have lubricated fishing stories for about 150 years in the Far North town that locals call the marlin capital of New Zealand, boasting that its striped marlin are twice as big as in any other fishing centre.

The bar survived the fire, but publicans Laurie and Colleen Stephens watched as flames reduced the kitchen, dining room and bedrooms upstairs to charred pockets of ash.

Stu, who did not want to give his full name, had just returned home from Auckland after a month working on fishing boats and was celebrating his three-day break with a well-earned pint when the fire started.

About a dozen people were in the bar when members of the Whangaroa Big Game Fishing Club ran across the road to tell them the back of the hotel was on fire.

"Somebody came in and said, 'Laurie, your pub's on fire'. They were cool-as, casual-as," Stu said.

Discarding their drinks, patrons rushed outside to see thick black smoke coming from the dining room.

They ran to move drums of petrol and diesel stored in a small shed next door and then started grabbing the old photos, mounted fish and trophies that make up part of the area's history.

Soon the whole of Whangaroa was helping. The flames and smoke also attracted attention from people on the opposite side of the harbour, and from boaties.

Thirty firefighters from Kaeo, Kerikeri, Kaikohe and Mangonui took about 90 minutes to put out the flames. Several stayed overnight to watch for hotspots.

Stu said the hotel was a popular stop-over for tourists and boaties. "There's been some good times in there. It would be good to see them restore it back to the way it was, but I don't know. She's a happy-go-lucky place, with good company and good publicans."

American writer and fisherman Zane Grey propped up the bar in the 1920s and made the region famous for big-game fishing with his book Tales of an Angler's El Dorado.

In 2001, Mr Stephens relinquished the bar to show he could foot it with the legends, landing a 286kg broadbill after a 7 -hour fight and setting a record.

Fishing club chief executive Brian Matheson Smith said many "old-timers" had dropped by to have a look at the damage and reminisce.

"Many a romance was started in that bar. It was the local drinking hole. Whangaroa is a small place."

Laurie and Colleen Stephens have owned the bar since about 1994. It was recently repainted and advertised for sale.

A hotel has stood on the site since the mid-1800s, when it was the Masonic.

This is not the first fire at the hotel, but locals could not pinpoint the date of the earlier one.