Kawau Island

Kawau Island is in the Hauraki Gulf, close to the north-eastern coast of the North Island of New Zealand. It is named after the Māori word for the shag.At its closest point it lies 1.4 km (0.87 mi) off the coast of the Northland Peninsula, just south of Tāwharanui Peninsula, and about 8 km (5.0 mi) by sea journey from Sandspit Wharf, and shelters Kawau Bay to the north-east of Warkworth. It is 40 km (25 mi) north of Auckland.

Almost every property on the island relies on direct access to the sea. There are only two short roads serving settlements at Schoolhouse Bay and South Cove, and most residents have private wharves for access to their front door steps. A regular ferry service operates to the island from Sandspit Wharf on the mainland, as do water taxi services. Mansion House, in the Kawau Island Historic Reserve, is an important historic tourist attraction.

The island is 8 by 5 km (5.0 by 3.1 mi) at its longest axes, and is almost bisected by the long inlet of Bon Accord Harbour, which is geologically a "drowned valley". For more than a century, the sheltered location of the bay has made it a favourite stopping place for yachts.

The island is comprised primarily of greywacke rocks and small lava flows, which formed on the sea floor before the island was uplifted by tectonic forces. Many of the lava flows were associated with hydrothermal springs, which precipitated metal sulphides and minerals rich in iron, manganese and copper.

Approximately 17,000 years ago, during the Last Glacial Maximum, when sea levels were over 100 metres lower than at present, Kawau Island was connected to the North Island, and surrounded by a vast coastal plain where the Hauraki Gulf exists today. Sea levels began to rise 7,000 years ago, after which Kawau became an island, separated from the rest of New Zealand.

Kawau, though providing little arable land, was well-favoured by Māori for its beautiful surrounding waters, with battles over the island common from the 17th century on. Traditional stories involve the ancestor Toi-te-huatahi naming the island Te Kawau Tu Maro, meaning the shag (cormorant) standing watch. Kawau was occupied for generations by Tāmaki Māori tribes including Te Kawerau and Ngāi Tai. A defensive pā, Momona, is found on the island, located in the south-west along the ridge close to modern-day Mansion House.

Entrepreneurs from New South Wales purchased the island in 1840 and, shortly afterwards, James Forbes Beattie formed the Kawau Company, intending to mine copper on the island. Miners from Falmouth, Cornwall were brought over for the operation. After it was discovered that unsmelted ore was a fire hazard for ships, smelters from Wales were employed to run an ore-smelting operation on the island.

A rival company, funded by Frederick Whitaker and Theophilus Heale, was granted land immediately outside of the Kawau Company's land grant, giving them control of the wharf. The rival company created shafts underneath the Kawau Company's land, which led to a confrontation when miners from the Kawau Company broke into the rival company's heading. In 1846, the rival company's grant was rejected, and the Kawau Company took full possession of the mines in 1848. In 1844/45, the island produced about 7,000 pounds (3,200 kg) of copper, which was about a third of Auckland's exports for that year.