Look at nature through new eyes. Take time to explore your relationship with nature and enjoy its benefits – connecting with nature is good for us. Papatūānuku’s wellbeing is our wellbeing.
Be careful to make note of where you're going in the Onoke Reserve as paths are not always well marked. Make sure to stay off the train tracks, be safe!
Onoke is a place with interesting history here in Whangarei - the quarry was a source of track ballast, which forms the bed upon which railway sleepers are laid. It is unsure when the ballast pit opened, but estimates are around 1878. It was around this time that the Whangarei to Kamo railway section of railway began. This short length was one of the earliest railways in Northland, built to transport coal mined at Kamo to the wharf at Whangarei.
The railways of Northland took a long time to build. The North Island section from Wellington to Auckland was completed in 1908, but Whangarei had to wait another 17 years before the connection to Auckland was complete. Some of the ballast for this was obtained from Onoke.
A ’crusher’ installed at Kawiti signalled the end of production for the Onoke ballast pit, and the site was decommissioned. The boiler can still be seen here, but other machinery was sold or used elsewhere including the 40-year-old ‘Gates Gyratory Crusher’ which was removed from the site and sold for £105.16.
Since that time, nature has reclaimed and created a new and lush environment. Trees and plants that re-colonised the quarry were sheltered from winds and harsh weather and the largest fuschia in the world - the New Zealand Tree Fuchsia, Kōtukutuku (Fuchsia excorticata grows here). It is identified by its reddish brown papery bark and is one of the few truly deciduous native New Zealand trees