Te Paki Station – Northland, New Zealand. A brief history and a glimpse of pioneer life early last century in the isolated far north of New Zealand.
Te Paki Station, 20kms below New Zealand’s northern most point at Cape Reinga, is now owned and managed by the crown, but it was orginally a wedding gift made by Maori to Sam Yates and his new bride, the Maori chieftaness, Ngawini. The couple whose new lands comprised 42,000 acres extending north from Te Kao to Tom Bowling Bay, became known as the King and Queen of the pioneering north.
Te Paki Station Supplies Meat for Gumdiggers
Sam Yates sold the land to Rex Keene’s grandfather, Richard, in 1913. Richard owned a kauri gum operation at Pauarenga (Paua) on Parengarenga Harbour, and wanted a supply of meat for the gumdiggers. He kept two bullock teams to haul the the gum from the fields back to Paua, where it was stored in a shed on the jetty until there was sufficient to ship it to Auckland.
With the purchase of Te Paki Station, he was able to supply sheep and cattle for meat. AlthoughTe Paki was unbroken, mainly poor quality land, over 42,000 acres Richard was able to run approximately 1500 cattle and 7000 sheep. Every week a cow and several sheep were slaughtered and cut up, then taken around the gumfields and sold for sixpence a pound to the gumdiggers.
Maori Middens a Source of Calcium
Because Maori had inhabited this part of the country for many generations, their middens (rubbish pits) abounded. Richard Keene, understanding that his land was lime deficient and needing to repair it, dug the shell out of middens along Ninety Mile beach, burning and crushing it to extract calcium for use as fertiliser on Te Paki’s fields.
Rex Keene – Photo Theresa Sjoquist
In 1922, Len Keene, one of Richard’s seven sons, took over the management of Te Paki. Rex Keene, Len’s son and now 85, was raised on Te Paki station.
He says Len immediately mustered 350 four year old bullocks and sold them for three pounds ten shillings ($7) each. Included in the price was the delivery of the beasts to Auckland, a distance of almost 500kms. While motorised transport existed in the 1920’s, roads into the north were constituted of little more than clay bullock tracks, so the cattle had to be driven down Ninety Mile Beach to Kaitaia, and on from there.
Tung Oil Venture at Te Paki
In 1930 Te Paki Station was sold through a complicated deal to the Tung Oil Company. The Keenes maintained a share in the property and moved to a home at Paua. The Tung Oil company was set up to grow tung trees which were native to China. The fruit, approximately the size of a medium apple, bore half a dozen nuts and these were crushed to produce tung oil. By the late 1920’s, the depression had begun to set in and the bottom had dropped out of the kauri gum market and tung oil was touted as the replacement for gum as a cash crop in the north.
As it turned out, labour to harvest the nuts was too expensive and crushing them required an industrial plant. With neither of these costs factored into the project, it failed and the Tung Oil Company went into receivership. The Keene’s resumed ownership of Te Paki in 1934.
The carrier basket coming from the main land to Motupao Island – Photo courtesy Far North Regional Museum
Lighthouse – Motupao Island
On Te Paki Station’s coast, the off-shore island of Motuopao was host to the Cape Maria van Diemen lighthouse. The island was linked by a cable and winch to the mainland and every week Te Paki employees delivered mail and meat to the island via a large wicker basket. In return the lighthouse keeper sent back his mail and a hot bottle of tea for the mainlanders to enjoy before riding their horses back to the homestead. The lighthouse was moved in 1939 to Cape Reinga.
Arrival of the carrier basket at Motupao Island – Photo courtesy of Far North Regional Museum
Te Paki station was host to most travellers to the remote north because there was no other accommodation. Apart from the meat they grew, they also had a ready supply of fish. Fat mullet could be netted off the beach in February, and at Scott’s Point, good schnapper abounded. Coming back along the beach, the fishermen could supplement their catch with toheroas (shellfish) for fritters.
Richard Keene left Te Paki Station to Len and his brothers. In 1966, it was sold by the estate to the crown and the Keenes moved to Kaitaia in 1967.
Rex Keene – Photo Theresa Sjoquist
Sources: Rex Keene (2010)
Far North Regional Museum
Copyright
Bioforce
Daily Organics
Theresa Sjoquist
Theresa Sjoquist
The Paki Station stretched / stretches all the way to the Cape. The old homestead may have been 20km south but all the land between including the hut on Windy Ridge and access to wetlands (shooting ducks and swan) and the beach we called Twilight directly below the Cape was all The Paki. From my fond childhood memories your first introductory statement is incorrect.
Thanks Sandra, you’re correct in that it was, but is not now. The next sentence does say how much land and where it extended to the original gift was. Thanks for your comment. Did you live on Te Paki?
There is a lot of sadness for me as Ngati Kuri reading this story as this is the story of alienation of our lands the story is written is not the full story but a portion of such.
It was not until 2014 was Te Paki station or a portion of such of the 42000 acres able to be purchased by Ngati Kuri from the crown to return our Tupuna lands to our people.
Here is the other side of the story that is not covered the crown apology from 2014 “The Crown had failed to conduct an adequate investigation of customary interests, and did not include Ngati Kuri when it purchased the 86,885-acre Muriwhenua South block in 1858; Muriwhenua South was more than a third of the Ngati Kuri rohe, encompassing an entire east-to-west section of the peninsula, but the Crown only reserved 100 acres for future Maori use and took no measures to protect that reserve from alienation.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/…/AQJH6N4TVDY3JBVQP2C2UP6DLE/
Thanks for this information, Tamati. Historians research all aspects of a topic. Although the article I wrote eleven years ago was historical in nature, it was intended as part of a series of around 150 articles about life in Northland farming communities and as such relied on interviewing one or two people who were living, or in this case, had lived the experience. The article is pakeha-centric, and as such it’s interesting. It’s good to have the Ngati Kuri background to set the historically incorrect aspects of land ownership cited in the article into balance. Thanks again.
Iam trying to find out who managed te paki station on behalf of lands and survey in the early 1970s????