Kaipara Harbour is a large enclosed harbour estuary complex on the north-western side of the North Island of New Zealand. The northern part of the harbour is administered by Kaipara District Council and the southern part by Auckland Council. The local Māori iwi is Ngāti Whātua.
By area, the Kaipara Harbour is one of the largest harbours in the world. It covers at high tide, with exposed as mudflats and sandflats at low tide.Heath, RA (1975) "Stability of some New Zealand coastal inlets". New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, 9 (4):449-57.Fahy, F; Irving, P and John, S (1990) Coastal Resource Inventory First Order Survey. Department of Conservation.Robertson, B; Gillespie, P; Asher, R; Frisk, S; Keeley, N; Hopkins, G; Thompson, S and Tuckey, B (2002) Estuarine Environmental Assessment and Monitoring: A National Protocol. Prepared for Supporting Councils and The Ministry for the Environmental Sustainable Management Fund. Contract No. 5096.
According to Māori tradition, the name Kaipara had its origins in the 15th century when the Arawa chief Kahumatamomoe travelled to the Kaipara to visit his nephew at Pouto. At a feast, he was so impressed with the cooked root of the para fern, that he gave the name Kai-para to the district. Kaipara comes from the Māori meaning "food", and meaning "king fern".
Geography The harbour extends for some from north to south. Several large arms extend into the interior of the Northland Peninsula in the north-east of the harbour, one of them ending near the town of Maungaturoto, only from the east coast. The harbour has extensive catchments feeding five rivers and over a hundred streams, and includes large estuaries formed by the Wairoa, Otamatea, Oruawharo, Tauhoa (Channel) and Kaipara. A number of small islands off the shoreline are connected to the mainland by mudflats at low tide.
The Kaipara Harbour is broad and mostly shallow, as it is formed from a system of drowned river valleys.Hume, T. M. & Herdendorf, CE (1988). "A geomorphic classification of estuaries and its application to coastal resource management – a New Zealand example". Ocean and Shoreline Management, 11: 249–274. The harbour shoreline is convoluted by the entry of many rivers and streams, and is about long, being the drainage catchment for about of land.
The harbour mouth is a channel to the Tasman Sea. It narrows to a width of ,Haggit T, Mead S, and Bellingham M (2008) Kaipara Harbour Environmental Information Review ARC Technical Publication TP 354. and is over deep in parts. On average, Kaipara tides rise and fall . Spring tidal flows reach 9 km/h (5 knots) in the entrance channel and move 1,990 million cubic metres per tidal movement or 7,960 million cubic metres daily.Bellve, AR; Austin, G and Woods, B (2007) Pathway to energy generation from marine tidal currents in New Zealand's Kaipara Harbour University of Auckland.
The harbour entrance is hazardous for watercraft. Big waves from the Tasman Sea break over large sandbanks about five metres below the surface, two to five kilometres from the shore. The sand in these sandbanks comes mainly from the Waikato River. Sand discharged from this river is transported northward by the prevailing coastal currents. Some of this sand is carried into the Kaipara harbour entrance, but mostly cycles out again and then continues moving northwards along the west coast. The southern sandbanks at the entrance are constantly accumulating and releasing this sand.
These treacherous sandbanks shift and change position, and are known locally as "the graveyard". The graveyard is responsible for more shipwrecks than any other place in New Zealand, and has claimed at least 43 vessels – some say as many as 110.Gerard Hutching. Shipwrecks: Graveyard harbours Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand, updated 31 March 2008.King, Amanda (16 October 2008). "Would you call this a school of fish?." Howick and Pakuranga Times. Retrieved on 7 November 2008. For this reason, a lighthouse was built in 1884 at the end of the Pouto Peninsula, on the northern side of the entrance.Ryburn, Wayne (1999). Tall Spars, Steamers & Gum: A History of the Kaipara From Early European Settlement, 1854–1947, pages 140–144. . It was automated in 1947 and closed in the mid-1950s. The structure still exists and was renovated in 1982–84.History of the Kauri Coast Kauri Coast information. Retrieved 5 September 2017. The remains of wrecks still become visible under certain tidal and sand conditions. The Kaipara is rarely used today for shipping, and no large settlements lie close to its shores, although many small communities lie along its coastline.
Geology
The Kaipara Harbour is a drowned river valley system, which first formed 2–3 million years ago as an open bay, becoming a sheltered harbour as elongated sand dune barriers formed at the harbour's mouth. Over the last two million years, the harbour has cycled between periods of being a forested river valley and a flooded harbour, depending on changes in the global sea level. The present harbour formed approximately 8,000 years ago, after the Last Glacial Maximum.
Human use
Māori mythology and history
In Māori mythology, the ocean-going canoe Māhuhu voyaged from Hawaiki to New Zealand, commanded by the chief Rongomai. It overturned on the northern side of the entrance and Rongomai drowned. His body was eaten by araara (white trevally), and his descendants to this day will not eat that fish.
Māori settlements and marae have been scattered around the harbour margins for hundreds of years. The waterways of the Kaipara provided, and still provide, Māori with resources and a ready means of moving between marae.
Today most marae are associated with the Ngāti Whātua sub-tribes, Te Taoū and Te Uri-o-Hau. Both these sub-tribes descend from the chief Haumoewhārangi, who settled at Poutō on the northern side of the Kaipara entrance. He was killed in an argument about kūmara (sweet potatoes). His widow Waihekeao formed a partnership with a Tainui warrior chief, Kāwharu. Kāwharu led several destructive campaigns around Kaipara. Eventually the descendants of Waihekeao and Haumoewhārangi came to control the Kaipara Harbour. Te Uri-o-Hau was founded by Hakiputatōmuri, and controlled the northern part of Kaipara Harbour. Te Taoū was founded by Mawake, and controlled the south.
European history
James Cook sighted and recorded the harbour on his first voyage, in 1770. He named it "False Bay", noting in his journal that it had "the appearance of a Bay or inlet, but I believe it is only low land".
In 1839, European settlers began arriving in the Kaipara to fell and mill kauri trees and build boats for local requirements. Despite the perilous bar at the harbour entrance, the Kaipara became a busy port from the 1860s, shipping thousands of tonnes of kauri timber and gum. The first sailing ship wrecked at the entrance to the harbour was the 550-ton barque Aurora in April 1840.Brett, Henry (1928), White Wings (volume II) The Aurora The Brett Printing CompanyThe Amelia Thompson, White Wings Vol II. Founding of the Provinces And Old-Time Shipping. Passenger Ships From 1840 To 1885, Henry Brett, The Brett Printing Company, 1928, Auckland, pages 51–52 The brigantine Sophia Pate was wrecked at South Head in August 1841 with the loss of all 21 on board.Ryburn, Wayne (1999). Tall Spars, Steamers & Gum. Auckland, N.Z.: Kaipara Publications. p. 230. The most recent wreck was the yacht Aosky in 1994.
The town of Dargaville was established 30 kilometres up the Wairoa, the main river feeding the Kaipara from the north. The stretch of water to Dargaville is broad and straight and provided an easy route into the kauri forests in the interior. Dargaville flourished and immigrants from Britain and Croatia were attracted to the area. Ships up to 3,000 tons carried timber and logs out along the Wairoa to defy the bar at the harbour entrance before continuing, usually to another New Zealand port or across the Tasman to Australia.Claudia Orange. Northland places: Dargaville and the Northern Wairoa Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand, updated 8-May-2008
The Kaipara River is the principal river feeding Kaipara Harbour from the south. From 1863 Helensville established itself as a timber port on this river, and provided shipping services about the Kaipara. When the timber ran out, Helensville developed sheep and dairy farms, and more recently nut plantations, vineyards and deer farms.
Further south, Riverhead was an important trading link with the Kaipara and Helensville, and a centre for gum digging. Also set by a river, it milled timber and flour, and made paper. Later it turned to tobacco. From 1929 to 1933, the Riverhead State Forest was developed from of exhausted gum land.
As the kauri ran out, the Kaipara became a backwater. After 1920 the gum and timber industries dwindled, and farming, mainly dairying, took over. In particular, there is dairying on the rich Ruāwai flats. These flats are below sea level, and are protected by a stopbank and a drainage system. Coastal sawmill settlements at Tinopai, Arapaoa, Batley, Matakohe, Oneriri, Ōruawharo, Pahi, Paparoa, Tanoa and Whakapirau have become quiet backwaters. Pahi has become a launch point for houseboats and fishing. Matakohe has a museum which commemorates the kauri industry and the early Pākehā settlers.
Today, Dargaville is the principal centre in the Kaipara area. Its population plateaued in the 1960s. It is the country's main kūmara (sweet potato) producer.
Fisheries Much of the coastal fishing industry in New Zealand depends on mangrove forests. About 80% of fish caught commercially are linked to food chains dependent on the mangroves, and at least 30 species of fish use mangrove wetlands at some stage of their life cycle.
The marine and estuarine areas in the Kaipara Harbour breed snapper, mullet, flounder, sole, kahawai, white trevally, gurnard, yellow‑eyed mullet and skates, rays and sharks.Department of Conservation (1990) Coastal resource inventory: First order survey – Northland conservancy. Department of Conservation, Wellington. The Kaipara is the largest estuarine harbour on the west coast of New Zealand and provides significant areas of suitable breeding grounds and habitats for juvenile fish. It has fewer problems with water quality than the Manukau, and is the single most significant wetland for west coast fisheries.
In 2009, NIWA scientists discovered that 98 percent of snapper on the west coast of the North Island were originally juveniles from nurseries in the Kaipara. Snapper is New Zealand's largest recreational fishery, and is also a commercial fishery with an annual export value of $32 million. The findings show how fragile some fish stocks can be, and highlights the importance of protecting natural habitats, like the Kaipara.
Native rock oysters are plentiful on the rocky shores, and the introduced Pacific oysters flourish lower in the intertidal zone. There are cockles and tuatua on the lower tidal flats, mussels from low tide on the rocks to subtidal beds closer to the mouth of the harbour, and scallops in the tidal channels.
The scallop population has periodic incidences of high mortality, the causes of which have not been identified. Concerns in recent years about the size and availability of scallops have resulted in temporary closures of the scallop fisheries.Kaipara Harbour scallop fishery needs more time to build