Ngarata House

This ole house once knew his children
This ole house once new his wife
This ole house was home and comfort
As they fought the storms of life
This ole house once rang with laughter
This ole house heard many shouts
Now he trembles in the darkness
When the lightning walks about.              

     Rosemary Clooney 1954  I guess I heard this because my mother would have liked it. 


Maori lived in Totaranui for at least 500 hundred years before the arrival of European settlers. William Gibbs came in 1856 and established a model farm on 7000 acres.  His dairy farm supplied milk to Nelson.  This house was built in 1914 from local timber and is in the then very modern style of Californian bungalow.  It is now an education centre.
The extra is the sea shuttle leaving the beach.  They do several trips a day.  I think the tree twisting out from the bank is a Pohutakawa tree but it shouldn't be flowering this late in the summer.  The people on the beach had carried that picnic table down to the sand so they could eat breakfast there.  They did put it back I noticed in the evening.  Another two swim day.