The Arataki Visitor Centre is on Scenic Drive between Titirangi and Waiatarua. It is an iconic building, designed by architect Harry Turbott, and opened in the 1990s. The most striking aspect of the building is the central pou, representing the ancestors of the iwi of the Waitakere Ranges, Te Kawerau a Maki. This is [ Read More ]
I heard a lot when I was growing up about Wally Jarvis, one of the best swimmers at the Piha Surf Life Saving Club. An exceedingly tall young man – 6 feet 6 inches – Wally (Walter James) was one of three elite Jarvis swimmers who enriched surf clubs along the West Coast: Wally at Piha, brother [ Read More ]
This document was prepared by Graeme Murdoch to describe the Human Heritage of the Bethells/Te Henga area in preparation for a Local Area Plan for that area. While it is primarily focused on that area, much of this history is relevant to the Piha area. backgroundrpt-part2-humanheritage
Dr MacDiarmid, as he was known to everyone at Piha in the 1950s, was the resident doctor, whether he liked it or not. He came to Piha for the quiet life, to retire, but found himself called on to attend to ailing locals, lifesavers with bleeding heads and drowned visitors, at all times of the day or [ Read More ]
The Erdman family was associated with Piha for around 50 years, but the association came to an end with the death of Paula Erdman in 1995. The Erdmans originally came from Budapest, Hungary, and were one of a very few Hungarian families to arrive in New Zealand before the Second World War - the large influx of [ Read More ]
Frederick William Lucas has one of the most auspicious sporting records of any of the sportsmen in the Piha Surf Life Saving Club. He was born in 1902 to Sarah Ann and Arthur Lucas, and grew up in Auckland, joining the Ponsonby Rugby Football Club. He was a star three-quarter and played in the Auckland [ Read More ]
The Piha Bowling Club was established in 1955 in the Piha Domain. The greens were bulldozed by “Tiger” O’Brien and the first president was W Hall. Frank Barnett, from Garden Road (who gave his name to Barnett Hall at North Piha) was foundation treasurer. A Piha Women’s Bowling Club was founded the following year (1956) with [ Read More ]
The attached article I wrote was printed in the Herald on Sunday today (21 April 2013) in preparation for Anzac Day later this week. Based on the WW1 Roll of Honour on Lion Rock, it tells the stories of three of the men who went to the First World War from Piha: Charlie Cowan, Jack O’Donnell and [ Read More ]
During WW2, Radar operators at the RNZAF Mt Bates Station on Norfolk Island noticed strange bursts of “radio noise” at sunset and sunrise. Les Hepburn, in charge of the station, reported these to his superiors in New Zealand. Dr Elizabeth Alexander, in charge of radar research in the Radio Development Laboratory in Wellington, set about [ Read More ]
Merle was born Ella Merle Mobbs to Horace and Nell Mobbs in Christchurch on 9 October 1919, but spent almost her whole life on the West Coast. The Mobbs family farmed the 2900 acre Pae O Te Rangi Farm at Anawhata. The Mobbs’ homestead had a bush camp-style chimney, a dado around the kitchen made [ Read More ]
