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Pete Townend and son Bryn, aged 11, at Dacre Cottage. In the background, is the red barn that is being converted to a museum.
The committee’s attention has now turned to the barn, which was reroofed last December and will be
opened as a museum in around a year’s time. Also on the agenda is an extension to the existing Okura Bush Walkway, which will enable walkers to make a round trip. The developer has granted an easement for this, but funding and building the track falls to the volunteers. Pete says it is not easy land to put a track through, but the group is determined. They want to make it something residents of the new subdivision can use as well as visitors.
Since Dacre Cottage was built, 154 years ago, it has weathered storms, changes in ownership and neglect, but perhaps the most severe test is still to come. Situated in remote Karepiro Bay, the homestead can only be accessed by boat or on foot via Okura Bush Walkway, which starts from Haighs Access Rd or Stillwater Road and involves a three hour return trip. This will change when developer Evan Williams, who purchased the Weiti Block in December 2005, builds a carpark in Weiti Forest and a 1km track to Dacre Cottage. The residential development he plans will bring people – more people than this remote place has ever seen. Terry Moore takes up the story …
Dacre Cottage is one of the oldest buildings in Auckland. Captain Ranulph Dacre, a sea captain and timber merchant, who purchased surrounding Weiti Station in 1848, built the single room dwelling around 1855. The double brick walls provide wonderful insulation; Dacre Cottage management committee chair Pete Townend says little more than the warmth of a few candles is required to make the interior cosy in winter and it is always cool in summer. It is believed that Captain Dacre stayed in the cottage for a few months at a time, as he gradually stripped the surrounding land of kauri, which was turned into spars for the British navy.
Pete has been coming to the cottage for more than 20 years, often by kayak as he once ran a kayak school from his home in Okura. Frequent crossings of the tidal Okura River estuary to the cottage in Karepiro Bay have given him intimate knowledge of this waterway. He knows where the endangered dotterals nest, where stingrays bask just below the surface in the marine reserve and how easily
an outgoing tide can trap boats. His involvement with Dacre Cottage began around five years ago when
he was asked by one of the original committee members who restored the cottage in 1984, whether he
could help maintain the cottage and grounds. Both were in disrepair as in the 1990s the Weiti Station
owner of the time stopped access through his land. The grass was thigh-high, there were rats nests in
all the mattresses and possums were making themselves at home in the trees alongside the cottage. Nothing much had been done for four or five years and Pete says he was happy to help look after something that is part of our history.
Since then, volunteers have restored the big red barn alongside the cottage, and removed an overgrown garden, creating a new one complete with a picture-perfect white picket fence. Possum control has taken years. Two summers ago, the team was rewarded by the sight of pohutukawa flowering – which hadn’t happened for many years, due to voracious possums. Pete hasn’t seen
a possum at Dacre in six months. As many as 40 local volunteers attend regular working bees at the cottage, sometimes staying several days to plant, clean and repair. Big projects are undertaken at Christmas and Easter, with whole families getting involved. Pete’s son Bryn, aged 11, remembers seeing his grandfather, in his 70s, ripping out tree stumps with a strength that belied his age. All materials have been brought in by boat. Loads such as 450 metres of 4 x 2 timber have already worn
one dinghy out. Pete says at times several dinghies had to be roped together into a makeshift barge
when the loads got too big for a single boat. Mr Williams recently made life easier for the volunteers
by providing road access through Weiti Forest.
