If a mother's dearest wish is for her children to be safe and contented and a father wants to be able to provide shelter and food for them, imagine the worry and frustration felt by the parents of these 13 first group families with young children and the other adults with them at the conditions they found at Puhoi in 1863.
Here they were abandoned in the bush several kilometres up the Puhoi River without any means of contact with the outside world. The logistics of catering for 83 people day and night are daunting even at the best of times. Right from the beginning they needed to help and lean heavily on each other. Although shelter of a sort had been erected prior to their arrival, this merely consisted of two nikau whares, each barely 30 feet by 10 feet (10m x 3 m) – far short of what was needed to accommodate sleeping for 83 and storage of possessions and supplies.
These whares were set in a small clearing of the dense bush on the bank of the muddy, and tidal (salty) Puhoi River. June/July is mid-winter in New Zealand, so it rained and rained, which quickly turned the earth floor of the whares to mud and churned up the clearing which had stumps and sticks left from the trees protruding from it. Toilets had to be dug where they could amongst the tree roots. Just about every family had a babe or toddler at the learning to crawl or walk stage who needed to be always carried and watched by the older children to keep them from wandering into the river, fire, mud or into the bush where they could so easily get lost. Fresh water was some distance away through the bush. There was plenty of rain but how could they collect and save it? For washing clothes with fresh water, a spot could be found inland from the present village and across the bridge to be above high tide mark.
There were rats on the river banks but fortunately, and the new arrivals had yet to be certain, there were no snakes or venomous creatures and pigs were the only large wild animals wandering about in the adjacent enveloping bush. There were however many eerie after-dark bird calls but during those initial long nights these strange sounds were insufficient to deflect distressed children from concentrating on their mothers’ weeping so they clung together and prayed.
The supplies brought up from Auckland such as flour, sugar, tea, coffee were only in sacks or bags so it was impossible to keep them dry. Did each family have its own supplies and cook on separate fires? Probably not, but remember there were 83 to cater for, and it is said that they lived on bread and water for the first year. And where would there be dry firewood even though the fire would not have been allowed to go out? The springy branches of the mingi mingi bushes were collected to serve as mattresses as there was no alternative but to continue sleeping on the ground.
The men had a few spades, axes and rifles between them so hunted for birds and fish, but could not find enough to satisfy everyone. Fortunately the local Maori were friendly and helpful so despite very real language difficulties on both sides, they were shown just what could be eaten out of the bush, how to catch fish, gather shell fish and snare birds. The Maoris also brought them vegetables and fruit from their pa (Maori village) gardens at Te Muri on the coast just north of the Puhoi River mouth.
The land surveying gangs may well have put up a crude structure earlier, but as most of the allocated land was on the far side of the Fiddler's Hill Creek, a more substantial bridge was a priority. Joseph VLACH who worked with these surveyors tragically was accidentally shot and killed.
A whare in newly cleared bush 