Harbourside

Ōhiwa, just over the hill from Whakatāne, has often seemed to live in the shadow of its Ōhope neighbour. Voted New Zealand’s Most Loved Beach, Ōhope has miles of pristine sand framed by pōhutukawa-clad hills, and is regularly thronged with visitors and locals; at Ōhiwa meanwhile, you’ll often have the place to yourself.

It wasn’t always this way. For many years Ōhiwa was the star of the show, with a growing population and thriving industry. Māori had long recognised its abundant food sources, and several iwi had fought over who could fish from it. Tauwhare Pā, at the western end of the harbour, was - as one of the oldest pā’s in the area - witness to these battles, as well as being the scene of how the conflicts were brought to a close. Tradition has it that in the 1840s fighting broke out between Ngāti Awa and a Whakatōhea raiding party, but a young Ngāti Awa woman, who had only recently given birth to a child fathered by a Whakatōhea man, decided enough was enough and threatened to dash the child on the rocks unless fighting ceased; taken aback by this bold statement, both sides laid down their arms.

Māori weren’t the only ones to recognise Ōhiwa’s importance however. Pākehā arrived in the 1830s and settlements flourished, buoyed by a shipping boom established in the 1870s which lasted nearly a century. Wharves were built at Ōhiwa and Kutarere to carry the abundance of the harbour and the surrounding Bay of Plenty around the country, and soon these staging posts had grown into sizeable communities. With the establishment of a ferry across the harbour, the Ōhiwa settlement soon had a post office, general store, a growing number of houses, and a hotel; a letter to a Tauranga newspaper in the 1890s touts the lively atmosphere of the hotel and its good food and clean rooms, before noting that its distance from Tauranga ‘means discretion is assured’.

It wasn’t all fun and games though. On Saturday, 10 July 1896, a Mr James Forsyth was found dead in his humble Ōhiwa shack, his head battered in by a hammer. Forsyth had been an artist, much respected by Māori, but less so by his Pākehā peers who viewed anyone without a ‘real job’ as questionable; perhaps worse still was Forsyth’s penchant to show interest in the daughters of some of the local business barons.

Forsyth was a regular at the Hotel but not a heavy drinker and had been in fine spirits, so his death shocked the small town, with The New Zealand Herald reporting the episode under the heading of “The Strange Death of an Artist”. Even more shocking however, was the ruling by local police that Forsyth’s death was, remarkably, a suicide. A modern interpretation of the contemporary evidence carried out by a television documentary in the 1990s found that the wounds to Forsyth were so shallow that they may have been made by a child or woman, but it was very unlikely they were self-inflicted.

His journal, discovered in his shack, contains the motto “Art lives long, life is short” and this would prove to be eerily accurate. Forsyth was just 32 (or 39, no one seems to know) when he died but his art does live on. One of his paintings of Whakatāne, believed to be the earliest colour rendition of the town, can be seen in Te Kōputu a te whanga a Toi - the Whakatāne Library and Exhibition Centre

Ōhiwa itself would not out-live Forsyth for long. In 1911 the wharf suddenly subsided, and though repairs were undertaken it was a losing game against the shifting sands of the harbour. Erosion would soon see the hotel and ultimately the whole settlement slip into the harbour and history forever, and as silt began to clog the channels fewer and fewer deep draft ships were calling. While nearby towns like Whakatāne and Ōpōtiki grew, Ōhiwa faded.

Oddly, the same erosion that took Ōhiwa attempted to take Forsyth, as the cemetery where he was buried also fell victim to the fickle sands; his grave, along with many others, was moved and his mortal remains are now lost to time forever.

All that is however, in the past, and Ōhiwa is very much about living in the here and now. On a good day - and they mostly are in Ōhiwa - the harbour rolls lazily in and out, flat and calm, and work and the wider world seem a million miles away. Tauwhare Pā is now a nature reserve, with the terraces still in place, and you can walk it for the history and outstanding views of the harbour, ocean, and - somewhat more dramatically - a shark spawning ground. There are also excellent walks around the harbour itself, and kayaking and stand-up paddle boarding are popular, as is a new harbour cruise initiative.

The wharf, rather confusingly renamed Port Ōhope to avoid confusion with the old Ōhiwa settlement, is also a must see. Fisherman’s Wharf restaurant offers fine dining as well as great takeaways, and the Mata Brewery popup serves great food and local brews to accompany pizza and burger trucks. But the best part is the theatre that plays out on the wharf itself: the very young and very not so young regularly fish off the wharf, swapping fish tales, and the locals have honed bombing off the wharf to a fine art.

Ōhiwa; it’s literally the other side of Ōhope, it’s a Kiwiana experience you’re hard pressed to find anywhere these days, and it’s alive and kicking and waiting for you.

The wharf, rather confusingly renamed Port Ōhope to avoid confusion with the old Ōhiwa settlement, is also a must see.