David Cook

Colonial settlers cleared and drained much of the native forest wetlands that once dominated the Waikato. Remains of the old forest can be seen in the timber of Dr Beale’s cottage, built in 1872 from locally sourced kahikatea and kauri. Pasted over the milled timber are fragments of nineteenth century wallpaper, picturing the transformation of the wild country into pasture, road, industry and home.

The PS Rangiriri was commissioned by the colonial government in 1864 for use on the Waikato River during the New Zealand Land Wars. It arrived too late for the wars but was used as a supply and transport vessel on the Waikato River. In 1889 it ran aground at the site of a former timber mill.

European settlement of Hamilton was formally established after the Land Wars in 1864, when Captain William Steele disembarked from the PS Rangiriri and set up the first military redoubt near what is now known as Memorial Park. The park is now populated with exotic specimen trees imported from the northern hemisphere.

Running through The Waikato Diocesan School for Girls is a gully that drains into the Waikato River. The school is part of a city-wide gully restoration programme, removing exotic invasive plants and replanting with locally sourced native flora.

The flood of July 1998 was a great media spectacle. Farms were swamped, riverbanks reshaped and jetties lost.

Rare riverside section for sale – 548m².

The Yang Cheng Takeaway serves Chinese food, burgers and fish & chips. The potted rubber plant, Ficus elastica, is native to northeast India through to Indonesia.

Despite a widespread fear of dangerous currents and poor water quality, the Hamilton Mafia Triathlon Club regularly trains and competes in the river.

Positioned precariously on a high bank overlooking the Waikato, the Horsham Downs Golf Club is built with the shower and toilets facing the river.

The suburb of Flagstaff is populated with street names derived from Captain Cook’s voyages of discovery in the Pacific: Discovery Drive, Endeavour Avenue, Eclipse Rise, Meridian Place.

The Pukete storm-water outfall is designed to deliver excess surface water from suburban streets to the Waikato River.

The river flow through Hamilton fluctuates between 150 and 630 cubic metres per second, largely controlled by eight power station dams.

In recent history the Waikato habitat has been transformed dramatically from native wetland forest to open pasture. Consequently some native species have lost their habitat, but the pūkeko has thrived in the new environment. They love to forage for food and collect grit beside motorways.

Four thousand chickens live under one roof at a broiler breeder farm.

Beef cattle graze under an exotic alder grove on the left bank of the river.

During the Land Wars of the 1860s much of the region's Maori land was confiscated by the colonial forces. In 1940 Te Puea Herangi was able to buy back this farm land. She ran it as a dairy farm business, to sustain the people of Turangawaewae.

Ngaruawahia school children restore native plants to the banks of the lower Waikato River.

The Hakarimata Range, on the horizon, is covered in native forest, including scattered pockets of kauri. Hakarimata is named after the ‘raw feast’ of animals and plants that inhabits its slopes.