KENNEDYS BAY Written by E. Schwimmer Photography: Peter Blanc At Te Kopoai, near Kennedys Bay, many ancient tools and weapons were found by Selwyn Te Moananui Hovell (now in Christchurch) and the late Reginald Bell, whose widow has many of them in a private museum at her home. Above shell hooks are made from the shell Cookia sulcata (top left). Upper series is in the process of making.

Gold and Timber vanished but the Land and the People remained The road from Coromandel Harbour to Kennedys Bay is only eight miles long, but inhabitants of the Peninsula claim it proudly as the worst road in New Zealand. There is a blind corner overhanging a cliff every hundred yards and the surface consists entirely of clay and large type of boulders. During the first stages of the ascent we took a tourist interest in the splendid view over the grey fiords and islands sitting like introspective beavers around the pale blue expanse of Coromandel Bay. When the gradient of the road made the car engine cut out we were forcefully pulled back to the laborious physical details of bringing the engine back to life. This was a good introduction to Kennedys Bay where life alternates between the commanding scenery and the laborious physical detail of kerosene lights and crossing inlets in dinghies. The purpose of our visit was to discover the Maori history of this little-known spot which was the scene of one of the most generous land gifts ever made in the Country, where towns were built and burnt for firewood, within a century, where several other different economies followed each other in a century and where the eyes of tired men still light up at the suggestion of an eeling expedition. In Kennedys Bay one can see how in so young a country as New Zealand towns can come and go and leave no monument, hardly a trace except a few acres that cannot be ploughed because of stone foundations still buried just below the soil surface. The tidal flat a furlong from the school, now covered with short grass, was the main town site in the milling days. One of the inhabitants, Mr Fred Anderson, possesses all that is left of it: a faded photograph.

Generous Gift Early in the ninteenth century the original Maori inhabitants of Kennedys Bay disappeared. Many were killed during an unfortunate fight with the brigs Trial and Brothers in 1815, many more during the Ngapuhi invasion coinciding with the invasion of Port Jackson. The survivors left the Bay. Later, little yachts belonging to the Ngati Porou visited the place on their way to Auckland to sell their wheat and maize. The Hauraki chief, Paora te Putu of the Ngati Tamatera, treated them with noble generosity. When Ngati Porou asked him for permission to land in the Bay during rough weather, he answered ‘this land is given to you’ and as he spoke his outstretched hand traced the area between the Harataunga River. Piripirika Hill, and the main range, extending to the far point where the bay ended. It was one of the most generous gifts that ever passed between one tribe and another. When timberfelling started, it obtained great monetary value and the land was partitioned among the settler families by the Maori Land Court.