Whangarei Heads and Oil Refinery. Northland. New Zealand. - Drawing Waymarks on Waymarking.com

This painting, created by Paua's mother, is the view from the family home, right on the beachfront at Onerahi on the Whangarei Harbour.

It is an oil painting on canvas, one of a set of two, featuring the Whangarei Heads on the northern side of the harbour entrance and the Oil Refinery with its tall red striped chimney and bright flare burning on the southern side of the channel. This is typical of a fine summers day in the winterless north with the Pohutukawa trees blooming in the foreground. This view, on the east coast of the Northland peninsula, is looking east towards the Pacific Ocean and features the familiar landscape of the "Heads" and Mt Manaia.

As children we grew up here, playing on the beach, swimming, fishing, or just gazing out the window at the view, watching the change of colour and light over the different moods of the water. There was always something to see with the cargo ships and tug boats regularly passing by on their way to the port in Whangarei.

We have seen Queen Elizabeth arrive aboard the royal yacht Britannia which anchored about the centre of the painting and a launch carried the Queen further up the harbour to the Onerahi wharf where she disembarked to meet the small crowd waiting to greet her.

We remember ferocious storms that sent huge waves crashing over the road leaving trails of seaweed and driftwood, tossing boats ashore on the rocks, a mini tornado that lifted and swept a dinghy along the roadside and a tidal wave (tsunami) all the way from an Alaskan earthquake that resulted in the low tide suddenly coming in and receding at great speed.

Sharks and sunfish were regular visitors to the warm waters, small yachts often capsized during the sailing race days, shellfish, pipis and scallops were gathered from the mudbanks at low tide, many hours were spent floating in and out with the tide on lilos, fishing nets were set to catch the flounder that gathered in the shallows and we rowed our boat full of giggling little girls along the waterfront on Xmas Eve singing christmas carols across the water. Before our local primary school had its own swimming pool we used to walk daily, a long line of chattering children, from the school down to this beach in our togs for our swimming lessons between the rock jetties along the beach. And our swimming sports were held there too, racing from the jetty and diving off the rocks. The old primary school has long gone, to make way for the airport runway above the harbour.

Ahhhhh, Those were the good ol' days! But the view still remains the same!

Waymark Poster's choice of medium: Oil on canvas Seating options: Bring a rug or a deck chair and sit on the beach. Waymark link (optional): Not listed

Visit Instructions:
Visit the coordinates given for the location. Create a hand-drawn artwork of the location from the same viewing location or a different location. If you choose to draw from a different perspective, note your coordinates in your visit log. Also include information about which medium you selected and any interesting information you may have about the location that wasn't included in the Long Description.

Recent Visits/Logs:

Date Logged Log   03/10/2009 Punga and Paua visited it

View all visits/logs