Tolaga Bay is a sleepy historic township located a leisurely 40 minutes drive, North of Gisborne.
The drive to Tolaga bay from Gisborne is along the iconic Pacific Coast Highway that gives glimpses of a fantastic coastline with beautiful secluded sandy beaches and rocky foreshore.
Tolaga Bay's 660 metre long wharf has been given national recognition as an "outstanding historical significance."
We suggest that visitors take a step back in time and make a day trip to Tolaga Bay from their base in Gisborne to:
- Buy an ice cream
- Take a walk along the Cooks Cove Walkway, a five kilometres walk over farmland and through bush of Eastland to Cook's Cove, where Captain Cook halted to repair the Endeavour and take on fresh supplies
- Stroll along Tolaga Bay's newly crowned significant historical iconic wharf - We suggest that visitors take a fishing line to discover what the locals know - the wharf is an excellent fishing spot!
Press Release: Historic Places Trust
The Tolaga Bay Wharf north of Gisborne has just had a promotion.
The New Zealand Historic Places Trust – the country’s lead heritage agency – recently upgraded the 660m-long wharf to a Category I historic place, denoting it as a place of outstanding historical significance.
“The upgrade of the registration from Category II is a direct reflection of the historic importance of the Tolaga Bay Wharf,” says the Historic Places Trust’s Lower Northern Area Manager, Gail Henry.
“This extraordinary structure – widely regarded as the longest concrete wharf in the Southern Hemisphere – played an integral part in the growth and development of the East Coast, and is one of the great icons of the area.”
First registered as the equivalent of a Category II historic place by the Trust in 1984, the wharf’s increase in heritage status is a reflection of a change in people’s appreciation of heritage.
“People’s perception of what constitutes a heritage structure – and their understanding of what heritage actually means – has changed hugely in 25 years,” says Gail.
“Today, the Tolaga Bay Wharf is appreciated for its aesthetic value and the genius of its construction – as well as for less tangible qualities that somehow elevate a functional structure like this into something truly evocative.”
Save the Tolaga Bay Wharf funding director, Clive Bibby, is pleased that the wharf’s heritage status has been upgraded.
“The Category I classification is a true reflection of the wharf’s heritage significance,” says Clive.
“It is one of the great East Coast icons, as well as the most visited and photographed taonga in the area.
More than that, the scale of this structure, and what it meant to the region and country as a whole makes it a place of national significance. It’s a monument to the halcyon days of the great pastoral economy.”
Today, the wharf is still used – though not for its original purpose. It’s a great recreational facility with people fishing from it and using it as a favourite picnic spot. Local Maori see it as a mahinga kai [garden] for gathering sea food – particularly mussels and crayfish hiding in the debris at the base of the wharf end.
People agree that the wharf is definitely worth preserving – despite its steady deterioration over the course of its 80-year life.
“The aggregate used in the wharf’s construction included local beach sand. The salts in the resulting concrete have attacked the reinforcing, which has expanded with the result that bits of concrete are dropping away,” says Clive.
Years of hard work and fundraising by Save the Tolaga Bay Wharf have seen two phases of the wharf restoration completed. A $1.2 million contract for phase three has been let with work beginning this month.
There is still much to be done, however, with deterioration still a problem.
“We’ve had great support in the past from the community as well as Gisborne District Council, the Historic Places Trust’s Tairawhiti Branch Committee, the Ministry of Tourism and Sport and the New Zealand Lotteries Board, but probably our greatest individual benefactor has been the Williams Family Trusts who have come to our aid time and time again. We are very grateful to all these groups,” says Clive.
For more information on the Tolaga Bay Wharf, people can go to www.gisborne.co.nz/tolagabay
Source: Click HERE
