Photo at 7.30 pm of the almost quenched fire, supplied by a reader. On Friday 15 March 2024 a huge fire broke out, apparently in gorse, at a property just north of Waikawa Beach Road. Crews at vegetation fire in Horowhenua | RNZ News: Fire and Emergency was alerted to the fire on Waikawa Beach Road about 4pm. At its peak, the fire was burning over an area of 800 by 500 metres and nine crews from Ōtaki, Levin, Te Horo and Wellington were in attendance.
Horowhenua Maori Place Names _ Map IV by Adkin - cropped. Source: [horowhenua.kete.net.nz/item/c20e...](https://horowhenua.kete.net.nz/item/c20e494f-60c0-4548-ae30-4dbaf6764a1e) License: Attribution + NonCommercial + ShareAlike. There is some interesting reading about historical Waikawa Beach in the document Te Kotahitanga o Te Iwi o Ngāti Wehi Wehi — Cultural Impact Assessment Ōtaki to North Levin Highway Project 2022. From Pages 8 & 9: Te Rohe O ngāti Wehi Wehi Ngāti Wehi Wehi Settlement in the Horowhenua: Waikawa/Manakau Te Rauparaha established his first Pā in the Horowhenua, at Waikawa, around 1821-1823.
There's some interesting reading in NZ’s biggest quake-maker: Scientists peer inside Hikurangi Subduction Zone | RNZ News: Along [the Hikurangi] subduction zone, scientists have estimated a 26 percent chance of an event with a magnitude of 8.0 or larger striking beneath the lower North Island within the next 50 years.
That's underscored the importance of a major research focus on the role of slow-slip earthquakes, which unfold along the boundary silently, yet pack the power to shift faults by tens of centimetres over days, weeks or months.
Aerial view of Waikawa in 1962. Note: Manga Pirau Street is only half as long as it is now and the river turned toward the sea at that point too. Photo: from the Archive of the Waikawa Beach Ratepayers Association, aerial photo from 1962, showing Drake, Arthur and the northern part of Manga Pirau Streets. First published 17 April 2020. This Covid–19 version of Waikawa Beach, with roads empty of cars, vans and trucks, is how some longtime locals remember the good old days: “Waikawa the way it used to be”, as one said on Facebook.
Once I figured out how to find Mt Taranaki on the horizon it became quite easy. The mountain is only sometimes visible — best chances are a fine day with clear air and snow on the mountain. Mount Taranaki on 22 November 2017. Zoom lens and circular polarising filter helped in this shot. To spot it, stand directly facing the horizon, with your back to the Tararuas. Imagine the spot you can see is at 12 on an old-fashioned clock face.
On 23 January 1855 at about a quarter past nine in the evening a massive earthquake around magnitude 8.2 on the Richter scale struck the Wellington region. It wrecked many buildings, raised the seabed by about 1.5 metres, and lifted up a huge area of land. Thomas Bevan talks about the 1855 earthquake. The full force was also felt in the Wairarapa and Manawatu, as this report from Waikawa Beach reveals — The day the earth shifted | New Zealand Geographic says: Thomas Bevan, owner of an accommodation house at Waikawa, was seated by a large double-brick chimney with a child on his knee.
Waikawa Beach was very lucky indeed this month as while others suffered extreme hardship with Cyclone Gabrielle we got off with an unremarkable rainy, windy day. On 15 February 2023 though Nature decided to remind us not to be too complacent with a good M6 earthquake. At one point it was ranked as a 6.3, but it seems to have settled at 6.0. The quake began with an enormous cracking sound, followed moments later by such strong shaking I got out of our house and friends nearby headed for a sturdy doorway in their place.
We’re moving east — about 4 cm so far this year. That’s thanks to a slow-slip earthquake on the Hikurangi subduction plate boundary offshore the North Island’s east coast.
We tend to think of earthquakes as short sharp shocks, but:
slow slip events are like earthquakes in slow motion, unfolding over weeks to months and cannot be felt by humans.
The Hikurangi subduction zone – the boundary between the Australian and Pacific Plates – extends along the east coast and dives westward underneath the North Island.
[Ropata Miratana] said there had been a lot of Māori land at Waikawa Beach but since 1900 it had disappeared.
The article Iwi still flying the flag seeking justice and redress over land loss | Stuff.co.nz from 11 October 2022 has important information about Waikawa Beach.
It reads in part:
Ngāti Wehi Wehi is an iwi in the Manakau and Waikawa area south of Levin and members are presenting evidence to the Waitangi Tribunal as part of the Porirua ki Manawatū Inquiry this week.
Map showing one quake location just offshore between Waikawa Beach and Hokio Beach. There were a few very small shallow shakes last night, two of them close together and pretty much under Waikawa Beach: GeoNet: Quake - Sun Mar 20 2022 8:28 PM: 15 km south-east of Seddon; M4.5; Depth: 10 km. GeoNet: Quake - Sun Mar 20 2022 11:50 PM: 10 km west of Levin; M3.2; Depth: 5 km.