It is fitting that our visit to Rāwene begins at the end of the day. Legend has it that the village takes its name from a Māori chief whose dying wish saw him carried to this ridge above Hokianga Harbour to watch the sun set. Who can blame him?
We arrive on the peninsula just as the sun’s last rays make a dramatic appearance through rain clouds, beckoning us outside after six hours in a vehicle. We stroll along the chief’s ridgeline, admiring gold-lit water views, well-tended 19th century homes and the stillness of a northern evening.
Around here, nightlife comprises two teenagers racing downhill on pushbikes with a dog. “Kia ora,” they bellow cheerfully as they whiz past. And “kia ora” calls a lone motorist out her car window.
Harbourside tranquility in Rāwene. Photo by Phillip Simpson.
The takeaway shop is open, serving whole flounder and chips for $20. And the ferry is operating, making the last of its 24 daily return crossings to Kohukohu on the far side of the Hokianga Harbour. Otherwise, the town is hushed. The Foodmart closes at 6.30pm, the pub is under renovation and the fruit and vegetable man is shutting his shop doors and dashing any hope we might grab a jar of the store’s renowned chutney. When we ask what time he’ll open he shrugs, “I don’t wear a watch, mate.”
In the light of day, the township exudes a movie-set quality framed by mangroves, banana palms and bougainvillea. It is easy to picture a small-town mystery or romance unfolding in the tiny police station or tidy Colonial-era buildings, or on the wharf where two men dangle fishing lines.
Those seeking real historic drama can visit the former home of ship owner and trader Captain James Clendon and his wife Jane. He was a notable public figure who left his resourceful widow with eight children and a mountain of debt.
We head to No. 1 Parnell – named for its location at the start of the main drag – to hunt for a copy of Jane’s story on the bookshelves that line one corner of the gallery and café. It proves a great spot to unearth local writers, sculptors, painters and other artisans.
The famous Boatshed Cafe in Rāwene sits above the water of the Hokianga Harbour. Photo by Phillip Simpson.
From here, most of the best thing to do in Rāwene are just a few steps away. There’s the vehicle ferry, of course, and a third-generation fisherman selling smoked mullet and fresh flounder, ‘cash only’, alongside. A laundromat around the corner is strung with hanging floral baskets and sporting a striking mural of a tūī. The beloved Boatshed Café is a Rāwene dining institution, dishing up hearty homestyle food from a repurposed red tin shed built on piles over the harbour. We tuck into potato and mussel pot pie, quinoa salad and whopping wedges of chocolate cake while water sloshes below us.
Across the road, a puzzle shop is tucked inside the pastel-painted, wedge-shaped wooden building where former prime minister David Lange once practiced law. Louis ‘Puzzleman’ Toorenburg and his wife Sue run the store with the help of two other part-timers, both named Sue.
Colourful local shops in small town Rāwene. Photo by Phillip Simpson.
Louis has been seriously collecting puzzles for more than half a century and making and selling them for almost as long. He was 23 and planning to spend three months travelling New Zealand when he stumbled on the Hokianga village and couldn’t bear to leave. “I feel I got dragged into the place. It was fate,” he says.
Within weeks of his arrival in 1975, the young Dutchman had found accommodation and space to sell for his homemade wooden puzzles. He also started food and craft co-ops, launched a community newspaper and gladly attended poetry readings and plays in his adopted village.
These days, his wife knits every sock displayed in the shop window, while his granddaughter makes hair scrunchies, earrings and friendship bracelets for him to sell.
The arts are still strong in Rāwene, he says. As is the community itself, with its locally run hospital, gym, sailing club and education courses.
And Louis says Kiwis are discovering the village’s charms in droves. In the 12 months following lockdown, his trade doubled and he estimates 80 percent of the people who have entered his shop doors in the last year are visiting Hokianga for the first time.
“Rāwene has got real heart. There are a lot of educated people living in the Hokianga, people who got sick of the rat race and became city refugees.”
The owner of our beautifully appointed Marriner’s Boutique Guesthouse is one such refugee; a former lawyer embracing the Northland lifestyle. Photos in the real estate agency window promise a nearby 11.52 ha ‘lush lifestyle block’ with a cottage, river and orchard for $595,000.
The old Rāwene Courthouse / Library. Photo by Phillip Simpson.
We visit the old courthouse, which is now a library and I can’t resist a visit to OH – Outpost Hokianga – owned by fashion designer Lisa Strathdee, who worked in Milan and London before setting up shop in Rāwene. Lisa’s store is jammed with eclectic homewares, clothing and other treasures that catch her eye when she’s not running the local tourism association or waxing lyrical about Hokianga talent. The day we visit, she is smitten with the work of a flax weaver who has been making bags on the shop floor.
It takes perhaps four minutes to walk past every retail outlet in town and about 15 minutes to make the ferry crossing to Kohukohu but a full and thoroughly pleasant day to properly experience the place and some of its 500 or so residents.
Better still, stay an extra night and catch another sunset.
Story by Sue Hoffart, photos by Phillip Simpson for the Winter 2023 issue of AA Directions magazine.
Explore more from AA Directions magazine while you're here:
- Meet 13-year-old Ed Malcolm-Tait, a keen gardener with a passion for growing dahlias
- Wheel Love: a classic 1981 Mitsubishi Mirage
- What happens when small towns are bypassed by new highways?
