Wandering Westwards
The anti-JAFA brigade would have you believe that the best view of Auckland is in the rear-vision mirror. Be that as it may, looking from the Āwhitu Peninsula, the city, seen distantly across the Manukau Harbour, makes an exceptional backdrop to a foreground of birds on beaches, or scenes of steep hills surrounding lush green flats. Bounded by the Tasman Sea on the west, the peninsula juts into the Manukau Harbour, and its pastoral terrain presents a totally different world from Auckland, just a shortish drive away.
At the head of the harbour, the replica Manukau lighthouse, constructed to replace the original that was built in 1874, stands on a promontory overlooking both the harbour and the notorious Manukau entrance. Rapid tidal flows and a constantly changing bar make the harbour dangerous to access. Many lives have been lost here and it was the site of one of New Zealand’s worst shipwrecks when the HMS Orpheus was lost on the bar in 1863 with 190 men drowned. Given the dangerous bar and the lack of infrastructure to support expanding the Ports of Auckland into this harbour, the reason that yet another costly report is being commissioned defies logic. More disappointing evidence of money being spent in all the wrong places.
Two magnificent Māori carvings in a paddock beside the lighthouse acknowledge the history of the Ngāti te Ata and Waiohua tribes. Situated on an ancient trail, created as part of Māori settlement in the 13th and 14th centuries, they’re a very effective reminder of
