FINAL Cooks Beach, Ferry Landing & Flaxmill Bay Community Plan .Pub

Home , Cooks Beach, Whitianga

Art by: ChristinaArt by: Hardie

Vision: A place for us to care for and protect

Whatu ngarongaro he tangata, toitu he whenua Man disappears but the land remains

1 September 2006 Contents

Why do a Community Plan?...... 3

How will the plan work? ...... 3

Who will have access to the plan? ...... 3

How will progress and success be measured?...... 3

How can new ideas be incorporated?...... 3

History – from Kupe to Cook ...... 4 Dacre’s Grant...... 5

A description of our community...... 7

Our process so far...... 11

Key areas of focus ...... 12

Plan details ...... 13 Alison Henry Alison Henry 2 A place for us to care and protect

Why do a Community Plan? As a short to medium term initiative for the communities of that suit the area Cooks Beach, Ferry Landing and Flaxmill Bay, the community ♦ Help avoid haphazard development vision plan will: ♦ Help influence Thames Coromandel District Council’s ♦ Focus community debate and get people involved in programme of works during its annual and long-term making decisions and taking responsibility for our planning processes communities ♦ Show opportunities for individuals and groups to develop ♦ Set direction and common goals, promote consensus and new projects and provide goods and services avoid division Reporting on this Plan each year will enable the community to ♦ Safeguard the community and the environment from record achievements and to check that the identified priorities exploitation are still correct. It will also be a chance to include new ♦ Capture all good ideas and identify initiatives suitable for information and new ideas. external funding ♦ Assist Community Board decision-making and allow more effective use of ratepayer funds ♦ Ensure the small settlements are able to develop facilities How will the plan work? This Community Plan is a collection of aspirations and The plan will be used to secure support from within and priorities for future directions. It is a community-owned outside the community for funding for specific projects and document and provides a framework to be used to guide will be reported on regularly to the Community Board and the decision making for local planning purposes. For example, public. Annual reporting will enable success to be measured individuals and groups who may be wishing to undertake a and information to be checked and updated. community project could use the Community Plan to determine There is opportunity for involvement at every stage of the priorities for action or to support their requests for external process. The Community Board will take an active role in funding. promoting the Plan to the community and where appropriate, As part of the Council’s planning process, the Mercury Bay facilitating project development. Community Board will use this Plan to determine local Others who have an interest in the future of the area will find priorities and to recommend future work programmes to the Community Plan an essential planning guide. These council. The Thames Coromandel District Council will take include: into account the principles and priorities as outlined in the ♦ Government Agencies Community Plan when deciding its annual and longer-term ♦ Other Councils work programmes. The Council will use the Community Plan as a basis for developing policies for desired growth within the ♦ Developers/Investors District. ♦ Visitors and Tourists

Who will have access to the plan? This Community Plan is available from the local Council Office at 46 Albert Street, Whitianga. How will progress and success be measured? A central record of activity will be kept at the District Council Council’s annual plan budgeting process. office, 46 Albert Street, Whitianga and through the Mercury A major review of this Community Plan will be undertaken Bay Community Board. Progress will be reported to the every three years to coincide with the review of Council’s community annually. Maintaining the integrity of the Plan and LTCCP process. This will involve public consultation and monitoring its use is a necessary part of the implementation. A input. review of the Plan’s highest priorities will be carried out by the Community Board at a time to coincide with the preparation of

How can new ideas be incorporated? The Community Plan has been arranged like a workbook so Plan should be made to the Thames Coromandel District that an individual or group may use it to keep a record of their Council’s Mercury Bay Area Manager, 46 Albert Street, activity and ideas. The central record of activity, maintained by Whitianga. Council, will form the basis of the annual report to the community and the Community Board. All comments on or contributions to this Community Vision 2 A place for us to care and protect

From Kupe to Cook –Drifts of settlement in the Mercury Bay Area Settlements on the east coast of the Coromandel Peninsula to historic records and paintings, is probably the place where reach back to the 14th Century when Kupe and his companions Ngati Hei first greeted their European visitors. made their epic journey to Aotearoa from the legendary Like Kupe before him, Captain Cook’s visit was followed by a Hawaiiki. He named his first landing place in the new land Te wave of settlers, this time from Britain and Europe drawn to Whitianga-A-Kupe – where Kupe crossed over. On his return the riches of timber, land, mining, and hunting the seas. From to Hawaiiki Kupe, in the tradition of great Polynesian the early 1800s European settlement expanded and the places voyagers, described the cosmological pathway for future fleets we now know as Ferry Landing, Front Beach, Flaxmill Bay of waka to sail to Aotearoa. One such waka to arrive in (originally Maramaratotara) and Cooks Beach took shape Whitianga some 400 years after Kupe’s visit was Te Arawa, within the area known as “Dacre’s Grant” – a large parcel of captained by Tama te-Kapua with Hei as the tauira (spiritual land stretching from the Whitianga harbour to the Purangi leader). Hei and his people stayed and settled the area and the Estuary. The first timber mill in the area was established at descendents of his Ngati Hei tribe remain here today. Ferry Landing in 1838 to process the expanding kauri timber Numerous pa sites have been excavated in the Whitianga area industry but was re-sited to Mercury Bay (Whitianga) in 1882. indicating a large number of Maori lived here over the next two A flax mill on the stream below Shakespeare Cliff remained hundred years after Hei’s arrival. The Whitianga pa at the only industry on this side of the harbour until it closed in Whitanga Rock is known as the pa of Hei Turepepa, a 1907 but the name “Flaxmill Bay” remains. The ferry service grandson of Hei, and is recognized as one of the earliest and which plays an essential role in transport connections with longest inhabited pa sites in New Zealand. Prolonged inter- Whitianga today was started in the 1880s to link the growing tribal warfare took toll, and by the time Captain Cook arrived development on both sides of the harbour. Where the ferry in 1769 the above pa had been recently sacked, and he saw landed was the name given to the settlement and is the one we only one well organized pa at Wharetaewa with gardens and use today. The front face of this settlement was known as many whare housing some 500 people. There was little “Front Beach” – and “Back Bay” was behind and was where a evidence of occupation outside the pa although at the Purangi kauri log-boom was constructed with rocks taken from the pa estuary people lived in summer camps collecting shellfish and fortifications on Whitianga Rock. fern root to dry for winter. Joe Davis Cook’s ship “Endeavour” was met by Ngati Hei canoes on Peter Johnston arrival in the bay in 1769 and some testy encounters resulted in Dal Minogue a Maori warrior being killed in a trading exchange with crew of Kate Piper Endeavour. The name Mahinakino, the area on Captain Cook Drive where the monument to Captain Cook stands today, commemorates that event. Despite this unfortunate incident, a positive and productive relationship between European and Maori ensued. Cook named the area, known to Maori as Whanganui-a-hei, “Mercury Bay” as it was here where he observed the transit of mercury across the sun adding important certainty to navigational accuracy. Cooks Beach was named at this time and the cliff adjacent to the beach was named Shakespeare Cliff for the resemblance to Shakespeare Cliff at Dover. (This is the most likely story although there are other suggestions as to how the cliff was named.) Below the cliffs beside Cooks Stream estuary is a small cave where, according Alison Henry Alison Henry 4 History

A short history of Dacre’s Grant from the early 1800s to today. Captain Ranulph Dacre arrived in Mercury Bay in 1828 on the of concrete remains to this day. Mention should be made here ship Lucy Ann looking for spars for the British Admiralty. He of “Fanny’s garden” the 50 acres at Purangi owned now by the had met in Sydney a bankrupt merchant named Gordon Davis Harsant family. James Colville tells that it was given to an Browne with whom Dacre sailed to NZ in the Belina in 1832. employee of the Bidwells in lieu of wages. Shortly thereafter After a disastrous few years in Mahurangi they moved the Sam Harsant’s Grandmother bought it from a Ben Anderson. operation to Mercury Bay where Dacre instructed Browne to Mrs Bidwell’s Christian names were Fanny Caryl as purchase as much land with standing timber as possible as well evidenced by a book of poems she wrote. as non-forested land for a cattle station. At this time Browne It is not known exactly when Bidwell sold to the next owners, built the stone wall, jetty and sawmill at Ferry Landing at a the Colville family, but it must have been in the early 1920s as cost to Dacre of 4,000 Pounds. minutes of the School of Mines in Thames in 1925 show LS The land he bought for the cattle station was virtually all the Bidwell as being employed as a temporary electrical instructor. land between the Whitianga harbour and the Purangi river and The minutes also mention how lucky they felt to procure his was purchased from Taharakee on 27 October 1837 for 16 services because of the current polio epidemic. These dates are pounds cash, 36 Sydney pieces worth 3 pounds each, 24 borne out by a scheme plan for subdivision drawn 4th of March blankets, 10 tents,10 hats, 20 tomahawks, 20 tinder boxes, 20 1926 by John Dawson, Licensed surveyor, of the whole 3,390 boxes of lucifers, 10 pairs of scissors, 10 looking glasses, 3 acres of Dacre’s Grant into 8 farms and lots of quarter-acre sixty pound boxes of tobacco, 140 pounds in Spanish dollars sections all the way from Ferry landing to nearly half a mile up and articles of merchandise. This land became known as the Purangi. The plan was drawn for George Colville but the Browne’s Grant. Land Sales Court (which dictated the price of land!) and the Browne died in 1842 owing Dacre 9,100 pounds, 13 shillings general economic collapse thereafter scotched any ideas of and 10 pence. On 28th of June 1862 the court awarded Dacre implementing the scheme. It was to be 20 years later in 1946, the land and it became Dacre’s Grant. after the slump and WWII that the next owners started During the period from the late 1870s until the construction of subdividing. Today the original 3,390 acres is in close to 1,000 roads in the area up to thirty families lived on the eastern bank separate titles, and no doubt the process will continue. of the Purangi River, their only access and transport being by The Colvilles ran sheep at first but wool prices were abysmal water. They farmed, fished, dept bees, sold kauri gum and so they built a cowshed behind Flaxmill Bay and milked a herd cultivated orchards and gardens. of cows. They collected cream from neighbouring farms up In 1893 James Maxwell Dacre, Auctioneer of Auckland the Purangi, first with horses and wagon then later with a Fargo (presumably Ranulph Dacre’s grandson) as Trustee ceded to truck. The cream was delivered to the river and ferried over to the Coromandel County Council 28 acres of land “ now used as the Dairy factory which had been established in 1924. This a public road between Whitianga harbour and the Purangi procedure was not without its dramas - there was the time river” in lieu of rates owing of 32 pounds 2 shillings and 4 when the Fargo rolled backwards into the tide with their small pence. (It is not known when or why Shakespeare Cliff was daughter in the cab! Fortunately she was rescued and later the transferred to the Crown but the DPS number suggests that it Lady Jocelyn winched the truck out. would have been around 1920 when Bidwell owned it.) In 1946 two young Englishmen, Richard Hardy and Gilbert The next known owner of Dacre’s Grant was Leonard Shelford Reginald Martinez de las Rivas who had been in the merchant Bidwell, a Cambridge Graduate in engineering. His forte was navy during the war bought Dacre’s Grant from the Colvilles apparently motor car designing, and two of his granddaughters and with the help of solicitor Hawea Rees proceeded to who have visited in recent years are perplexed as to why he subdivide along the southern side of Purangi Rd from Ferry would want to bring his wife and two children, Tom and landing. In 1950 they started on the subdivision at Cooks Cynthia, to the other side of the world to live in such an Beach which has only recently finished. The Land Sales Court isolated spot. Edith Hamilton (nee Lee ) who was born in 1906 was still in place when they commenced and a lot of time was and was a similar age to Cynthia visited them occasionally and spent in court arguing whether sections behind the road at recalls that they had a nice launch to go round to Whitianga or Front Beach were worth 45 Pounds or 90 Pounds! The small Mercury Bay as the town was then called. They arrived about farm between the road and Whakapenui Point had not been part 1910 and set about building at Flaxmill Bay the Homestead and of Dacre’s Grant for a long time (if ever?). It was owned by the a barn which was turned into a motel by Derek and Jo McNeil. Hunts in the mid 20s and the McCarthy family owned it from The Homestead was built by a man called Dagg who lived in a the early 1940s until subdivision. cottage at about what is now 1100 Purangi Road behind Front After they had separated off most of the sub-dividable land, beach. In 2003 John and Helen Hunt bought the Homestead for Hardy and Rivas sold the balance of the original Grant in 1951 removal and it now sits high on the ridge behind Cooks beach. to Chas and Myra Morcom who had been dairy farming in The Bidwells had three more children, while in Flaxmill Bay Tokoroa. They, with the help of son Toby and later younger (twins Bill and John, then Bob ), and concern for their son Keith milked cows in the old shed at Flaxmill until 1956 education led them to build a school down near the beach. A and proceeded to develop the hinterland. Up to that stage minimum of nine pupils was required to open a school, but farming had mainly been confined to the small valleys near the they got the numbers comfortably with their own, one son of coast and any attempt to grow grass in the volcanic ash Arthur Lee, three orphan daughters of Charlie Lee and several covering the hills had met with little success, mainly because it from the Waddington family who milked a small dairy herd for was low in phosphate. The Morcoms sold 1,000 acres of the the Bidwells on Cooks beach in a shed near the Purangi. A slab south western part of the block to Derek and Jo McNiel in 4 History

A short history of Dacre’s Grant from the early 1800s to today. cont 1953, an English couple who had bought the Homestead from Dick Hardy. The McNiels also acquired from Hardy and Rivas all the land sloping to the Whitianga River between Whitianga Rock and Quarry Point. In 2005 the McNiel family put that land into a QEII covenant so that it could never be built on. In 1959 Toby bought 1100 acres at the Purangi end from his parents and five years later Keith took over the home farm behind Flaxmill Bay. The advent of aerial topdressing had a tremendous impact on the two farms and land that had Captain Cook commenting on its barrenness during his visit of 1769. By the 1980s that land was carrying in excess of 3,500 sheep and 500 cattle. Since then nearly all the sheep and a lot of the beef breeding cows have disappeared and been replaced by Freisian bulls, dairy grazers, avocado orchards and vineyards. In 2006 most of the second, third and fourth generations of the Morcom family are still resident on Dacre’s Grant.

Toby Morcom August 2006.

“The Jelly Bean Ladies” Photo: Jack Vickerman Vickerman Photo: Jack

6 A description of our community

1. Demographics Population/housing/projections Cooks Beach, Flaxmill Bay and Ferry Landing: what is there at the moment?

While traditionally separate settlements, Cooks Beach, In the ten years between 1991 and 2001 the number of Flaxmill Bay and Ferry Landing have been addressed together dwellings in Cooks Beach to Ferry Landing increased from 603 in this study due to the organisation of statistical information. to 741 – an additional 111 dwellings or 18% increase. Analysis At the time of the 2001 Census, there was a usual resident of the Council’s building consent records for new dwellings population of approximately 327 people in the area. This was from March 2001 to December 2005 indicated that total an increase of 87 or 36% since 1991. In the summer of dwelling numbers are continuing to grow at a high rate. Over 2003/04, the peak population reached approximately 6,000 this time, 469 building consents were issued for the people – 18 times the usual population. construction of new dwellings, with most activity occurring in In terms of development trends, Cooks Beach to Ferry Landing Cooks beach in the years 2001 and 2002. At the time of consists predominantly of standard residential development in writing, Council records indicate that the strong growth in the coastal area. Most subdivision in Cooks Beach has been in dwelling numbers has seen Cooks Beach to Ferry Landing the form of staged, greenfield subdivision. In Ferry Landing become the sixth largest settlement in the District. and Flaxmill Bay, recent subdivision has included one greenfield-type subdivision and limited infill. Some of the rural areas surrounding Cooks beach/Ferry Landing have also been subdivided into smaller rural blocks. Photograph supplied by Toby Morcom Morcom Toby by supplied Photograph

6 A description of our community

1. Demographics Population/housing/projections Cooks Beach, Flaxmill Bay and Ferry Landing: what is there at the moment?