My Account
Little more than 25 years ago, Mangawhai’s status as a popular seaside destination was under serious threat. Major storms in the 1970s and 1980s, including the major Cyclone Bola in 1987, had caused the sea to break through the Mangawhai Sandspit. The result was multiple entrances to the harbour and eventually the original harbour entrance silted up. For boat owners and fishermen, venturing to sea was a perilous exercise. But the renowned Mangawhai can-do attitude eventually won the day, as local men embarked on what is remembered as ‘The Big Dig’. Displays at Mangawhai Museum recall the Big Dig, including a 10-minute video presentation created by local filmmaker Perry Trotter.Throughout the 1970s and 80s holidaymakers and locals watched in dismay as natural forces reshaped the Mangawhai coastline – favourite Mangawhai Heads holiday spots like Picnic Bay and the beach adjacent to the motor camp became stagnant and polluted backwaters. It was possible to walk from the motor camp or surf club to the northern end of the Mangawhai Wildlife Refuge without getting your feet wet. One can only imagine how the birds in the refuge, particularly the endangered NZ Fairy Tern, coped through these years of upheaval.
Locals pleaded with the authorities – Kaipara District Council, Northland Regional Council and the Department of Conservation – to rescue the situation, but without success. The common response was that it wasn’t possible to counter the damage done by nature’s forces. Faced with the prospect of Mangawhai Heads losing its harbour, a small group of local men determined that something had to be done. In secrecy, plans were made to try and close the rogue breaches and force the tidal water flow back to the original harbour entrance.
Led by Noel Cullen, Robert ‘Torchy’ Jeffery and Gary Berghan, some 50 men and 40 bulldozers, tractors, diggers and scrapers from as far a field as Ruawai and Wellsford converged on the Mangawhai Sandspit and what became known as ‘The Big Dig’ began with military precision at 6am on February 11 1991. For the next four days, these magnificent men and their machines worked around the tides to gradually close off the rogue breaches and excavate the original harbour entrance, with an initial channel 30 metres wide and four metres deep.
Nature eventually won that battle with the sea breaking through the sandspit yet again, but The Big Dig proved that a man-made solution was feasible. Over the next five years, and now with regional and district Council support, volunteers marked the restoration of the sandspit in June 1996. In June, Mangawhai Museum will host a Mangawhai Harbour Restoration Society celebration to mark the 25th anniversary of the Big Dig and the 20th anniversary of the completion of the man-made bund wall along the harbour side of the Mangawhai Spit.
