NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / New Zealand

Peter Calder: Swimming against the developers

NZ Herald
13 Jan, 2015 04:00 PM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Lyall Woolley and his son Michael on their farm at Woolleys Bay, on the Tutukaka coast. Photo / Peter Calder

Lyall Woolley and his son Michael on their farm at Woolleys Bay, on the Tutukaka coast. Photo / Peter Calder

The bay bears the family name, and Lyall Woolley is determined to keep it as a slice of 20th century summer.

It took longer than it should have before I noticed the name on the letterbox in the middle of Woolleys Bay.

In my defence, there was plenty of distraction for a holiday-making visitor. Woolleys is not quite as improbably picture-book as its neighbour, Whale Bay, but it's agreeably underpopulated.

Beyond small dunes stitched together by pingao, the long stretch of almost deserted golden beach is pounded by decent surf, but the sand shelves off sharply and beyond the breakers the water is as clear as soda.

The trees at the northern end are busy with tui in territorial disputes and the wings of fat kereru whistle as they lumber through the cool darkness in the branches of the puriri.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

So close to a city - it's barely half an hour from Whangarei - such emptiness is hard to find. A dozen houses ("baches" seems the wrong word for such ostentation) huddle at the southern end; a few more perch on the hill to the north. But most of the rest is a farm, and the name on the farm letterbox is Woolley.

Lyall Woolley takes a decent amount of time to agree to meet the bloke in beach shorts who says he's from the Herald. Talks it over first with his twin sons Michael and John - the former works the farm; the latter is "the accountant".

After three or four phone calls, I get the nod, though, and find myself in the farmhouse's cool front room, where the view of the almost-turquoise sea is framed by huge pohutukawa.

Lyall sits with his back to the sea and tells me he used to go swimming "but since I got two new knees I have to be a little bit canny when I go out there".

Now 83, he's the fourth generation of Woolleys in the bay that bears the family name. His great-grandfather, Joseph Fletcher Woolley, settled there in 1882 (a former sea captain, he had been living at Mt Denby where the Whangarei Golf Club now is).

The sweat of Joseph's son William Henry and his son Henry William was spilled taming the land here, where they run breeding cows and steers depending on the season. The 240ha run from the coast to a skyline pegged with a thin line of trees, like those in a child's drawing.

Discover more

Small Business

Peter Calder: Welcome to movie buff nirvana

16 Dec 04:00 PM
Opinion

NZ's first day mystery to most

23 Dec 08:30 PM
Entertainment

Peter Calder: Golden days for Asia's silver screen

03 Jan 02:35 AM
New Zealand

Peter Calder: Greetings from Serene St, Auckland

06 Jan 04:00 PM

Michael is the fifth generation, but Lyall's not sure about John's kids: "They're only coming up 7 and 4 so anything could happen."

He's lived his whole life here, Lyall has; he's older than the road - he calls it "the all-weather road" - which came through in the 1930s (he and Michael scratch around to remember when it was sealed: "We learned to drive on metal roads," says 47-year-old Michael, so it must have been the 80s).

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

There's not a trace of the "in-my-day" bore in Lyall's stories of walking over the hill to school in Matapouri each day.

"Sometimes," Michael remembers for him, "the kids coming over from Sandy Bay would give him a lift on their horses - if he didn't fall off".

His story is that Whale Bay was named for the butchering, in the early 20th century, of a whale by local Maori who had seen it dying at sea - they'd asked to borrow the farmer's "bring-me-near" (telescope) to check - and he has a large flat whalebone, painted with a beach scene as a memento.

That may be true, though it doesn't have to be: Maori had a 100-year history of whaling in the north at that stage, and Whale Bay would have been an ideal launching spot for the boats. Its relative calm meant it was where the supply boat beached when Lyall was a child.

The Woolleys' resistance to the blandishments of developers is the sole reason this little slice of 20th-century summer survives in the 21st. They allow camping in the front paddock, but not to all-comers - only to the descendants of those who have always camped there.

"People started camping here just after the First World War," Lyall says. "Some of those there now have been coming over 30 years and their offspring are coming with their offspring. Others who turn up will get told that there's a campground at Tutukaka."

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

But when school goes back, the campers have gone and Lyall plainly likes it that way. The family will hold out as long as they can against rising rates.

"I just don't want it all in development," he says. "Pig-headed, I suppose."

Save

    Share this article

Latest from New Zealand

New Zealand|crime

'Couldn't even walk': Hospo staff foil legless drunk driver who blew six times legal limit

04 Jul 07:20 AM
Wellington

'Amazing woman': Kiwi killed by elephant remembered as adventurous traveller

04 Jul 06:53 AM
New Zealand

Royal NZ Air Force establishes first dedicated space unit

04 Jul 06:24 AM

There’s more to Hawai‘i than beaches and buffets – here’s how to see it differently

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from New Zealand

'Couldn't even walk': Hospo staff foil legless drunk driver who blew six times legal limit

'Couldn't even walk': Hospo staff foil legless drunk driver who blew six times legal limit

04 Jul 07:20 AM

Police are praising the quick thinking of staff who quickly hatched a plan.

'Amazing woman': Kiwi killed by elephant remembered as adventurous traveller

'Amazing woman': Kiwi killed by elephant remembered as adventurous traveller

04 Jul 06:53 AM
Royal NZ Air Force establishes first dedicated space unit

Royal NZ Air Force establishes first dedicated space unit

04 Jul 06:24 AM
The nearly fatal gas exposure case that rocked Greymouth

The nearly fatal gas exposure case that rocked Greymouth

04 Jul 06:03 AM
From early mornings to easy living
sponsored

From early mornings to easy living

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP