Heart of the country: Waterside taste of days gone

By BRIDGET CARTER

Laurel and Peter Maddren's Horeke Tavern is like something featured on a postcard from colonial New Zealand.

Nestled on the Hokianga Harbour, the pub is one of the oldest in the country and has all the romance of the Victorian era.

Black-and-white pioneering pictures adorn the foyer, crystal chandeliers hang in the front room and the sheen of polished kauri is on the bar-tops and floors.

A large deck and garden bar stretch out to the harbour foreshore.

But behind the picturesque setting, the stories of mystery and adventure and the old-fashioned scenes displayed on the walls is a modern tale of plain hard work.

The Maddrens have spent years toiling to turn a run-down pub in one of the poorest parts of New Zealand into an attractive place for locals, out-of-towners and tourists to relax over a drink, escape and "come back to reminisce".

Laurel, 45, and Peter, 50, who have been married for about 20 years, moved north from their Mt Albert home when they bought the pub six years ago.

They already had land planted in pines at Horeke and were enchanted by the history of the pub and the area.

"Every time I came up to look after the pines I fell more in love with the north," says Mr Maddren.

"It was a refuge from Auckland."

The pub was "pretty derelict" when he sold his trucking business to take it over.

The couple, with three young children and a new baby, lived in a barn that had no electricity while they carried out renovations.

And as first-time publicans, they learned about running the business on the job.

But they have no regrets.

The pub, built in 1828, is linked to numerous stories about the country's first shipping industry at Horeke.

"Cannibal Jack", confined on a ship for receiving a stolen watch, helped to build the Horeke Tavern after escaping ashore at the Hokianga.

Stage-coaches and horses stood outside the tavern and five "working girls" upstairs catered for the ship-builders.

There are tales of horse races on the harbour's edge, an endless stream of foreign sailors who drank at the tavern - and New Zealand's first judicial execution, only metres in front of the pub on an island in the harbour.

The couple celebrate the pub's history through old photographs and decor.

They have courtesy transport and a change of style - "nobody wants to stand in the pub and drink like they used to".

A "no-nonsense" policy takes care of the difficult customers.

People come for the bed-and-breakfast service or to listen to a live band in the garden bar.

At the very least, the Maddrens say, they have a beautiful home. The job is demanding, but it is "enjoyable work".

"It was a bit of shock to the system at first," says Laurel Maddren. "But I would not be anywhere else now. It is so still and peaceful here."