The Matakana River was the areas’ first highway that was busy for almost a century.

Matakana Village was known in the 19th century as Upper Matakana to distinguish itself from the settlement of Lower Matakana – now known as Sandspit – at the mouth of the river. What we now know as Matakana River was referred to as the Middle Branch of the Matakana River.

The first European settler at Upper Matakana was timber merchant John Long Heydn, who built a sawmill below the falls as early as 1854.

During the 19th century, the main means of transport and communication with Auckland was by water. During the early years of the settlement, goods were unloaded from sailing ships at Lower Matakana. ‘Annie Millbank’ made weekly trips -landing and receiving goods at Lower Matakana from 1879. A wharf was urgently built at Lower Matakana in the same year.

The river was a highway of logging activity. Kauri was rafted down the river to where they were sawmilled, loaded into scows, or crafted by the many boatbuilders in the area.

Once most of the easily cut timber resources had been depleted by the 1880s, the development of the Upper Matakana wharf saw the rise of agriculture and fruit growing in the area. Shortly after, the dairy industry also prospered as more land was cleared.

Kotiti. Photo credit Junction Mag

The Northern Steam Company’s SS. Kotiti scheduled Monday and Tuesday sailings between Matakana and Auckland throughout the First World War. Those who joined the war effort took the coastal steamer from the wharf.

The river remained the main means of communication until the 1930s. In 1936, the Northern Steamship Company still maintained twice weekly sailings of the S.S. Omana to and from Matakana.

Before the Second World War, Gubb’s Motors ran regularly daily buses connecting Matakana to Leigh, Warkworth, Kaipara Flats Station, Puhoi, Waiwera, and Auckland. Following the Second World War 1939, the coastal steamer services ended.

In the late 1940s, the wharf was replaced with a concrete structure, suggesting that river traffic was still economically viable. From the 1950s, however, boats using the wharf dwindled following the opening of the Auckland Harbour Bridge and improvements to the East Coast Road north.

Author: Grant McLachlan