The Kakamatua Inlet is an inlet of the

Manukau Harbour The Manukau Harbour is the second largest natural harbour in New Zealand by area. It is located to the southwest of the Auckland isthmus, and opens out into the Tasman Sea. Geography The harbour mouth is between the northern head ("Burne ...

of the Auckland Region of

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

's North Island.

Geography

The Kakamatua Inlet is bordered between

Huia The huia ( ; ; ''Heteralocha acutirostris'') is an extinct species of New Zealand wattlebird, endemic to the North Island of New Zealand. The last confirmed sighting of a huia was in 1907, although there was a credible sighting in 1924. It ...

to the west and the Karangahape Peninsula and settlement of

Cornwallis Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis, (31 December 1738 – 5 October 1805), styled Viscount Brome between 1753 and 1762 and known as the Earl Cornwallis between 1762 and 1792, was a British Army general and official. In the United S ...

to the east. It is the point where the Kakamatua Stream reaches the Manukau Harbour.

History

The creek is in the traditional

rohe The Māori people of New Zealand use the word ''rohe'' to describe the territory or boundaries of '' iwi'' (tribes), although some divide their rohe into several ''takiwā''. The areas shown on the map (right) are indicative only, and some iw ...

of the

iwi Iwi () are the largest social units in New Zealand Māori society. In Māori roughly means "people" or "nation", and is often translated as "tribe", or "a confederation of tribes". The word is both singular and plural in the Māori language, ...

Te Kawerau ā Maki Te Kawerau ā Maki, Te Kawerau a Maki, or Te Kawerau-a-Maki is a Māori '' iwi'' (tribe) of the Auckland Region of New Zealand. It had 251 registered adult members as of June 2017. Auckland Council gave it land for a marae at Te Henga (Bethells ...

and other

Tāmaki Māori Tāmaki Māori are Māori '' iwi'' and ''hapū'' (tribes and sub-tribes) who have a strong connection to Tāmaki Makaurau (the Auckland Region), and whose rohe was traditionally within the region. Among Ngā Mana Whenua o Tāmaki Makaurau (the M ...

. The location was given the name after Te Kawerau ā Maki returned to West Auckland after the Musket Wars and settled at Kakamatua in 1836. The name "Kakamātua" referenced Te Mātua and Te Kaka Whakaara, the head land and the pā at Karekare which were attacked in 1825 during the Musket Wars. After six months and fears of attacks subsided, the iwi moved to the Te Henga / Bethells Beach area. In the 1860s, New Zealand settler Mathew Roe obtained rights for

kauri ''Agathis'', commonly known as kauri or dammara, is a genus of 22 species of evergreen tree. The genus is part of the ancient conifer family Araucariaceae, a group once widespread during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, but now largely res ...

logging in the valley, building a sawmill at the Kakamatua Inlet at the mouth of the Kakamatua Stream. When he exhausted the kauri resources of the lower valley, Roe constructed a driving dam on the Kakamatua River further up-stream, in order to send logs down the river towards the mill. The sawmill operated until the 1870s. The inlet was close to the sinking location of the HMS ''Orpheus'', which sunk in the Manukau Harbour in 1863. Many of the victims of the shipwreck were buried near the inlet.

References

{{Waitākere Ranges Local Board Area Inlets of New Zealand Manukau Harbour Musket Wars Te Kawerau ā Maki Waitākere Ranges Local Board Area West Auckland, New Zealand