Te Kauaeranga (Pā) – This word means ‘The stacked bones of the whale jaw’. Waiwhakaurunga (Kauaeranga River) – means ‘the many bathing pools of the upper reaches’.

Waiwhakaurunga is commonly called Kauaeranga River, after the early Te Kauaeranga pā formally situated at the entrance of the river. The river winds its course from the picturesque upper valley, where the presence of numerous swimming pools explains its original name down to the old pā site. It is one of three key rivers that drain into the Firth of Thames.

Details of early Māori settlement are not now widely known, but old gold field maps from the government official James McKay in 1869 show the Waiwhakaurunga Block, otherwise known as Whakari Block (of which a peak Whakari was named) covering the upper reaches of the valley up to the divide, and the Otunui Block covering the lower reaches.

Undoubtedly the river itself and the surrounding lands would have been considered a very favourable area by its earliest occupants due to its river access and the abundance of berries and birds.

One stream that leads into Waiwhakaurunga is Manga-kirikiri, ‘the tributary of river stones’, and it was greatly favoured by Māori for its prolific birdlife and magnificent stand of trees.

The range itself was formed by prehistoric tectonic lifting and volcanic activity. The geology is predominantly andesite and rhyolite, forming the distinctive peaks of The Pinnacles and Tauranikau overlaying base sedimentary rock greywacke and argillites. The area of Table Mountain was once that of a lake, which may explain the flat, swampy nature of the landscape at its flat peak.

According to Māori lore, Table Mountain is named Te Whakairi o Ngatoroirangi – ‘the up-raised rock of Ngatoroirangi’. Ngatoroirangi was the priestly navigator on the Arawa waka, and set a stone in the ranges as a sign for all to see. Māori stories report the presence of tuna (eels), kōkopu (freshwater fish) and kōura (freshwater crayfish), in the swamps, but the hospitable terrain held no attraction.

The peak of Kai-tarakihi (832m) is the principal mountain of the Ngāti Maru tribe. Like most forest regions throughout the country, these ranges were the habitat of the mythical and mischievous patupairehe, the bush fairies – small and wraith-like in appearance, possessing fine white hair and pink eyes that cause them to avoid bright sunlight. All manner of ills are blamed on them, unexplained sickness, crop failure. Due to timber milling, their places of refuge have been dwindled, forcing them to retreat to the Urewera district of the Tūhoe tribes.

The Thames Water Race

The Thames water race was constructed over the period 1872-75 to carry water from the Kauaeranga River to Thames, providing water and energy for gold mining operations and the town’s domestic water supply. The design was known as an “open” race; that is, it was not totally enclosed by a pipe, which meant the survey and engineering had to be very precise, to prevent water spilling over the sides.

Water first flowed down the race on 14th January 1876 and was sourced from an intake just downstream from Hoffman’s Pool, the race was trestled 10m in the air, across forest and rivers carried fresh Kauaeranga water some 15km down to Thames to supply the goldfields stampers and general needs of the booming population and it provided the town’s water supply needs until it was replaced by a pipeline and finally decommissioned in 1947.

Logging History

The Kauaeranga Valley was once filled with magnificent Kauri trees, and the loss of these magnificent trees is still felt. From the 1870s to the 1920s, this area was extensively logged for its Kauri, as timber was in great demand in Thames to build the town, and for use on the goldfields.

In the main river valley and its tributaries, contractors worked from bush camps supplied by packhorse track. Using nothing more than axe, saw and timber jack, they felled thousands of massive trees, which were trimmed, cut to length and against all odds, transported to streams, and rivers via log chutes or by bullock along skidded roads.

Up to 60 kauri dams were built in the valley and its tributaries and often tripped in sequence to send timber down the river. In certain narrow parts of the valley, the gorge was too narrow and log jammed, so miners blasted the rock to form a wider channel.

Eventually the logs ended up downstream and caught by low chain booms (vertical logs connected by chains) stretching across the flats of river, where they were moved by canal to the The Main Booms camp and the waiting tram, or driven further downstream to the Parawai Booms, where they were taken down the river to Shortland Wharf and Kōpū for milling.

During the 1890s the kauri timber industry slumped, and drought often made driving the logs down the valley impossible for years at a time, as a result many local mills closed down. Around 1910 the industry revived and plans were made to extract the remaining stands of timber in the rugged upper Kauaeranga Valley.

These logs were damaged beyond use going over the Billygoat Falls, so a tramline was built to bypass the Billygoat Falls and move the logs down to the waiting Kauaeranga tramline.

From Thames, this tramline followed the south side of the river, before crossing at Hoffman’s Pool (of which the concrete pads of the bridges still remain) before heading up the north side of the river, taking the path now occupied by the road.

Loggers often spent weeks and months in the valley, so bush camps were established. The main contractor’s camp and store was built around Wainora, serving not only the loggers, but also gum-diggers. Various other bush camps dot the valley, now rotted and grown over and only a few remnants still remain.

Logging operations spanned 60 years during which time some 200 million super feet of Kauri where removed from this one valley.  By 1928 most of the kauri had been logged, the tramline was pulled up and the dams, bush camps and other relics fell into ruin as Kauaeranga forests slowly recovered.

Early European Settlers

In the lower reaches of the Kauaeranga Valley, farms were established with five lots made available in 1880. Lack of roads and severe weather made farming difficult, so the land was allowed to revert to bush. There was little farmed land left by the late 1960s.

Residents first requested that the Auckland Education Board establish a school in the valley in 1896, but the Kauaeranga Valley School did not open until 1903. The initial roll was 30 students. By 1946, with the road to Thames having improved and many children going to school there, the roll had fallen to seven, and the school closed.

The Kauaeranga Valley Dairy Company opened a factory in November 1907 to produce milk and butter. It closed in September 1908 and moved to Parawai, where it was defunct by 1910.

A road between Thames and Tairua was proposed in 1909, with the recommended route going through the Kauaeranga Valley, up the Piraunui Valley, across the Hihi saddle, and down the third branch of Tairua River. In 1926, a track was created over this route, and the following year, 100 men started work to convert it to a road, but the work was abandoned later that year. After the Second World War, a route further south along the Kirikiri Stream gained favour, and the road which is now State Highway 25A was built from 1961, opening to traffic in March 1967.

From 1957, an electric power line was built from Thames, through the Kauaeranga Valley and north to Coroglen. This was complete by 1959.

The New Zealand Forestry Service ran trials of various species of pine, and in 1970 the remaining native forests of the Kauaeranga were protected as part of the Coromandel Forest Park. Today the Coromandel Forest Park is managed by The Department of Conservation whose HQ marks the beginning of the park. DoC looks after the tracks, trails, campsites and huts for us to all enjoy.