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Updated: June 15, 2025
Ships of heavy tonnage can get up to Tokatoka on the Wairoa, to Te Pahi and Te Otamatea, and within a short distance of Helensville, these places being, respectively, from twenty-five to thirty-five miles from the Heads. Smaller vessels can, of course, go anywhere.
It waters an extensive valley, and, flowing north-westerly, falls into the Kaipara Harbour, some miles below Helensville. It is tidal to a short distance above the settlement. The harbour is a vast inlet of the sea, almost land-locked, since its entrance, the Heads, is only about three or four miles wide.
Successive hills and rolling ranges, clothed with primeval forest, close in upon the valley. About the centre of the broad-stretching vale, we discern a little patch of what looks like grass and cleared land. There is here a cluster of houses, whitely gleaming beside the river, and that hamlet is Helensville the future town and metropolis of the Kaipara.
The next morning after our arrival at Helensville, we go down to the wharf, close behind the hotel, and embark on board the steamer Lily. This vessel is the only regular means of communication, at present, with the young settlements lying round the Kaipara. She is a much larger craft than the Gemini, but she is of the same ancient and ruinous character.
Now our cry must be "Forward!" for a page in the book of our lives is completely turned down, and we may imagine there is endorsed upon it, "Sacred to the memory of auld lang syne!" The railway now runs northward to Helensville, connecting Auckland with the Kaipara; and is being pushed on to Whangarei.
Bad as they are, they are considered a local improvement, for, until quite recently, settlers had to depend on small sailing-boats, that plied very irregularly. The Kaipara is a name applied rather indiscriminately to a river, a harbour, and to a tract of country. The Kaipara river is that on which Helensville stands.
It is said that the kauri-tree requires eight hundred years to arrive at maturity. To visit the forest where it is found in the Auckland district, one takes cars from the city to Helensville, a distance of about forty miles, where the Kaipara River is reached, upon which small steamers ply, taking us directly to the desired spot.
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