Tolaga Bay Wharf

“Tolaga Bay, Uawa in Māori is both a Bay and small town on the East Coast of New Zealand’s North Island located 45 kilometres northeast of Gisborne and 30 kilometres south of Tokomaru Bay.

It was named Tolaga Bay by Lt. James Cook, but the original Māori name is Uawanui a Ruamatua, shortened to Uawa, and some local residents now refer to the area as Hauiti, and themselves as Hauitians from the local iwi Te Aitanga-a-Hauiti.

The region around the Bay is rugged and remote, and for many years the only access to the town was by boat. Because the Bay is shallow, a 600m long wharf, the longest in New Zealand was built to accommodate visiting vessels. In the 1830s there was a thriving flax trade involving early European traders like Barnet Burns.

This wharf is now in threat and a committee from the township are appealing for funds and technical help to restore and save it. Two rivers reach the Pacific Ocean at Tolaga Bay, the Waiau and the Mangaheia. An island in the Bay was originally named Spöring Island by Cook, after his expedition’s assistant naturalist and instrument maker, Herman Spöring, a Finnish botanist. These days it is known by its Māori name, Pourewa.

The town is a popular holiday spot and its population is predominantly Māori, a centre of the Te Aitanga-a-Hauiti iwi and home of ariki: Te Kani a Takirau and Tohunga – Rangiuia.”

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