Walk 52, 14 Nov 2020
This is a local walk. I can see Kawau Island from my house.
We caught the Mail run cruise to Kawau Island at Sandspit Wharf and they dropped us off at Schoolhouse Bay. From there we took the walk to the Coppermine and then to Mansion House. We missed the turn off to the mine but I’ve included some photos from an earlier walk.
Kawau Island have a healthy population of North Island weka which we saw on our walk.
The Coppermine
A manganese mine was established on the island in the 1840s; shortly after, copper was discovered by accident. The mine had ceased operation by 1855. These are the photos of the sandstone copper mine ruins from an earlier walk in 2005.
Mansion House
In 1862 the Island was purchased by one of New Zealand’s first governors, Sir George Grey, as a private owner. He employed architects to significantly extend the mine manager’s house to create his stately home in Mansion House Bay, now fully restored, in its sheltered sunny cove.
Governor Grey released wallabies and kookaburras on the island. I’ve heard the kookaburra who’ve established themselves on the mainland on an early morning walk while it was still dark.
Auckland City Council are intent on eradicating the wallabies. They’ve been blamed for destroying native bush and associated birdlife. I don’t agree because the wallabies aren’t predators and after a century there’s still an active kiwi and weka population on the island. The wallabies have been culled by shooting since the days of George Grey but the Council and DOC use poison which is cruel. Some of the islanders value the wallabies as part of the island’s history and as an attraction for visitors.
History
Kawau Island’s traditional name is ‘Te Kawau tumaro o Toi’. The island is reputed to have been settled by descendants of Toi and later by descendants of the crews of the Arawa and Tainui canoes.
Like much of the land, the island was uninhabited when the Europeans arrived. It had been abandoned by the Maori in the 1820s after a particularly bloody skirmish during the musket wars.
After protracted debate over ownership Kawau was sold in the 1840s to W.T. Fairburn of the North British Australasian Loan and Investment Company.
Copper was mined from 1844 until June 1852 when the mines were inundated.
Governor George Grey – soldier, statesman, explorer, philanthropist
George Grey governed New Zealand from 1845 to 1853 and enjoyed great mana with the Maori who he admired from the start. He reassured them that their lands were safe, but declared he would not tolerate neutrality among the chiefs. They must choose where they stood: with Britain or with the rebels.
He governed again from 1860 to 1868 but his reputation was tarnished in his second term by his policies in Taranaki, his invasion of Waikato, and the massive confiscation (raupatu) of Māori land which followed. The confiscations, in particular, caused decades of bitterness and deep division.
Confiscating land to pay for the war in the 1860s was a really bad idea, but in 1878 an offer was made to return the confiscated land to Waikato Maori. The offer was refused. See the note below the links.
As a scholar, George Grey was deeply interested in the culture of the Maori and when he retired to Kawau Island, he studied ethnography.
Over one of the bookcases in the library, Grey had inscribed the words: “Learn from the Past. Use well the Present. Improve the Future.”
Walk 51, Coppermine Walk, Kawau Island
Links
154 years since Governor George Grey’s troops invaded Waikato
George Grey, writings:
He (Grey) took a scholarly interest in Maori language and culture.
Māori chiefs often alluded to mythology and wove proverbs and poem fragments into their speeches, the meaning of which was largely lost on outsiders. To better understand what was being said, Grey began collecting traditional poems and legends, proverbs and myths wherever he went.
After a labour of eight years he had the stories that appeared in his classic 1855 book, Polynesian Mythology, and Ancient Traditional History of the New Zealand Race, first published in Māori the previous year.
He was the author of Ko nga mahinga a nga tupuna Maori, London 1854; Ko nga moteatea, me nga hakirara o nga maori, Wellington, 1853; Ko nga waiata maori, Cape Town and London, 1857″ (Keith Sinclair (1990) writing in Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, Vol 1″)
Ko nga Waiata Maori, [by] Sir George Grey (1857)
Ko Nga Mahinga a Nga Tupuna Maori, mea kohikohi mai na Sir George Grey K.C.B.
1854
Auckland Libraries: Sir George Grey Special Collections
The offer to return confiscated land to Waikato Maori
Note: In 1878 the Governor and the Native Minister went to meet the proclaimed king, Tawhiao, and made a generous offer, which included the return of all confiscated Waikato land not disposed of by the Government to Europeans.
The Government offer sat on the table waiting a response from the Maori king Tawhiao for a year, when a substantial official party, led by Governor Grey and Native Minister Sheehan, came expecting the completion of the agreement, and another positive step forward in putting an end to conflict.
Tawhiao refused to accept anything less than the return of all confiscated land. He turned down the Government offer, to general surprise and consternation, with a refusal to swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen.
Only 26% of confiscated land was returned in Waikato, compared with 64% in Taranaki and 83% in Tauranga.
Source: Kapiti Coast Independent: Revising NZ History 5: Wiremu Kingi at Waitara
What led to king Tawhiao’s intransigence? He’d been friends with Governor Grey. On Kawau Island King Tawhiao, at Grey’s suggestion, entered into a solemn pact that bound them both to keep away from the alcohol that threatened Tawhiao with disgrace. Source: The governor’s island
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