Do you know this about new Zealand?

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 70, 23 March 1940, Page 4 (Supplement)

Do you know this about new Zealand?

; That at one time the largest ; shipyard in the colony was situi ated at Whangaroa, North Auckland? Thirty-eight years ago t'his most beautiful of New Zealand's harbours was quite a populous little town, possessing "two public schools, four stores, ; three places of worship and ' many nice private dwellings." • Nowadays Whangaroa is a place ! which time has forgotten. The ' only relic of the two sawmills 1 13 a stretch of sand feet deep in ' sawdust and the rotting relics of an old fram line. The school is a tiny place high on a hillside and the houses have dwindled to ; u mere handful fringing the foreshore. A3 the timber went, so • did Whangaroa. Yet tKis place, ■ certainly one of the most bcauti--1 ful, is possibly one of the most ' workable harbours in the world. ' Lord Jellicoe said that it would be possible to anchor the entire ■ British Fleet there. Of the fiord 1 type, it has a narrow entrance, barely 200 yards wide, and very deep.

What causcs those curious blue-black markings that run through the wood of tawa? They are a feature of this pleasant, straight - grained timber and most people accept them as part of the tawa itself. However, t'hey arc caused by a fungus which usually is not much trouble to the tree until the latter's death, when it quickly bccomcs active. Tawa, though it was used many years ago for making tubs, buckets, butter and wine ca?ks, is but slowly coming into popularity again. It is easily milled, is white and clean, and its only fault is that it is rather brittle. It is milled extensively in Marlborough, which is the limit of the southern species and is found in the Bay of Plenty very frequently to be the gt'aplc timber of a mill.