Port Ōhiwa

Port Ōhiwa was the last of three attempts to establish Ōhiwa Harbour as a shipping port.

From 1957, when the wharf was opened, and for almost a decade, noisy 1000 tonne cargo ships and people loading and unloading cargo day and night dominated the scene, a distant reality now.

 

The first ship to tie up to the wharf was the small wooden coaster Waiotahi under Captain Albert Mokomoko. Born in Ōpōtiki, he was one of the few Māori masters of a merchant ship still working at that time. 

 

Leo Ducker recalls: The Maori pilot, Albert Mokomoko from Opotiki, would keep an experienced eye on both the Opotiki bar and Ohiwa bar to allow ships to enter and depart safely. He was a fine, well respected man. I can well remember his sturdy figure at the wheel of his launch (Leo Ducker, Early Days of Ohiwa, 1994). Mokomoko also ferried supplies to the miners on White Island (Whakaari). In 1914 he was the first outsider to witness the aftermath of the White Island disaster that killed all 11 miners. 

 

Other ships calling into Port Ōhiwa included the M.V. Maranui and the M.V. Poranui which shipped local produce, milk powder and paper to Auckland and Nelson. The first refrigerated meat cargo from the Opotiki Bacon Factory left on the Maranui for Christchurch in 1962.

 

For many years, the name Port Ōhiwa created confusion with the original Ōhiwa township. In 1963 the New Zealand Geographic Board decreed a name change to Port Ōhope, but the port did not last much longer. In 1966, the Northern Steamship Company withdrew its service as their ships sustained too much damage crossing the shallow (12 to 16-foot-deep) Ōhiwa bar.

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