Tainui Road and Kiwi Road __________________ There were a number of narrow one-way bridges on Tainui Road that resulted in a number of accidents and near misses on a regular basis. Over a period of time, the road and bridges have been upgraded and the road is used regularly by many Hamilton residents travelling to the Coromandel beaches on weekends. Other change has been the obvious one of property ownership. Originally 12 farms were settled through the old Government Lands and Survey Department and over the intervening years many of the farms have been amalgamated and now are down to 8 farms. The driving force behind this has been economic reasons and this will no doubt continue. The farm my family bought in 1959 was part of the Tainui Estate – a sheep and beef farm of about 1400 acres owned by the Robertson family and sub-divided into 4 blocks. The tax laws at that time, particularly death duties, were the main reason for the sale. The block our family bought was 364 acres that was converted into a dairy unit. My late brother Ian and his wife Jeanette later farmed the back part of this block on Kiwi Road. The Moore family now owns it. My brother Graeme sold the front part, on Tainui Road, last year, after 40 years of family ownership, to the Sigh family. The block directly opposite was bought by the New Zealand Dairy Board in 1959 and run in conjunction with their bull farm at Newstead. This was later sold to Kevin and Chris Fraser-Jones who converted it to a dairy unit and built a superb home. The Tainui Tribal Trust now owns it. One of the original settlers, Mrs Doris Cooper now in her late 90’s, still owns the farm the first broke in. The Busby farm has now been in the family from 1952, when Owen took over from the first settler G Garaway, ‘til the present day with Ray Busby now farming it. The farm that Irene and I bought in 1961 was owned by W Gall, a first settler, and we later purchased the Blue farm, another original, and is now farmed under the company name of Flora Vale Ltd. Another first settler farm the Hill block on the corner of Tainui and Kiwi Roads, is still in he family and is run by Tom, a son of Russell whose father broke in that farm. The Pike farm was run by a member of that family for 60 years and is now owned by the Wilson family. The Duncan family now runs the 2 farms near the end of Kiwi Road as one unit and Gedye’s now own the old Parker farm with B Miller farming the block before them. Further up Tainui Road, the Pizzini family have amalgamated 2 of the original farms along with 2 other blocks next door. Edgar Wightman who made a significant contribution to the Hoe-o-Tainui School serving on the school committee as Secretary and Chairman from 1943 until his untimely death in 1957 owned one of the farms. A commemorative plaque has been on the wall of the school baths changing shed since they were built in 1960 to honour his service. An interesting feature of the original farms is that the water supply was piped down from a stream that was dammed in 1937. The dam is in the hills next to Hangawera Station on the end of Manuel Road Tauhei. The pipeline was renewed in the 70’s and still feeds 8 farms. Another point of interest was the original Austin Carr block on the corner of Tainui and Main Road and later farmed by the Southee brothers, Len and Maurice. It was sold to an American woman who tried a different form of farming based on the American system of zero grazing. This system was to house the cows indoors and cut and cart the grass to them. Unfortunately, this was not successful and the farm was sold shortly after and is now farmed by Craig McKie. Change will keep happening and the ever-present trend of amalgamations will continue placing further pressure on the rural population. What this means for the school’s future, only time will tell. |