Under the witty caption “The fire sirens of Piha beach”, journalist Mark Scott (himself a local with a bach in Rayner Road) profiled Piha’s female fire crew in about the late 1970s (my cutting has lost its date). Jane Caley in the photo below identifies the women as from left: Probably Sue Robertson or Robson; Naomi Smythe [ Read More ]
The debate around the Piha Bowling Club building has highlighted the age of the older buildings around Piha. It seemed timely to draw up a list of Piha’s built heritage and the age of these items. No buildings at Piha are contained on the Schedules of Auckland Council. There has been no built heritage survey [ Read More ]
On this hot sunny Thursday, 9 February, a large group gathered at Whatipu beach: young and old, Maori and Pakeha, navy personnel in uniform, a priest and uniformed Coastguard. They were all there to commemorate the 150th anniversary of New Zealand’s worst maritime disaster. On the 7th February 1863, the British steam corvette HMS Orpheus [ Read More ]
It may have been 50 years late, but on Friday 4 November, a small group of Auckland Council regional park rangers and descendants of the Rose family, gathered at Te Waha point north of Piha to unveil a cairn erected to mark two gifts of land to the regional park. Jim and Phyllis Rose gave [ Read More ]
Wondered what the work is going on around the macrocarpas in the Domain ? These two macrocarpa trees are the survivors of a group of three. They are protected in the schedules of the District Plan because of their historic importance. One tree is in serious decline, probably as a result of compression from car [ Read More ]
I was delighted to receive through the post a copy of the June 2011 magazine The Mail Coach, which features stories of the postal history of New Zealand. There was no accompanying letter, but the magazine was clearly sent to me because it c0ntained a story entitled “The post office at Piha, Auckland – a moving [ Read More ]
Auckland Council is about to undertake work to protect the two macrocarpas in the Piha Domain, near the Bowling Club. These two macrocarpas are the remnants of a group of three planted by the Ness and Cowan families when they built a house here in the 1870s. Therefore the trees are around 140 years old. They are [ Read More ]
These images are from a great project ” Legends of the West ” Public Art Project. The idea was to tell the stories of the West, originally to prevent graffiti alongside Henderson Railway Station ” but now to adorn the walls of community centres in Waitakere. Originally eight artists and illustrators were appointed by Waitakere [ Read More ]
Sunday 20 March saw a big crowd pack into the friendly Titirangi RSA for the launch of Marc Bonny’s book Titirangi Fringe of Heaven published by the West Auckland Historical Society. Bonny’s book is the fruit of many years of research and writing covering the early history of the settlement, stories of early families the [ Read More ]
Marcus Lush’s new programme North was passing through Piha on Sunday 27 February and who should show up on it, but yours truly. I got to tell two stories: The “body in the burning bach” about an insurance swindle in the 1930s that involved exhuming a body from Waikumete Cemetery and setting fire to a [ Read More ]