New Zealand - Kawau - Formerly the home of Sir George Grey, one of New Zealand's earliest Governors, this lovely island is 30 miles north-east of Auckland in the Hauraki Gulf. This photograph shows a view looking over Mansion House Bay towards Whangaparaoa Peninsula and Rangitoto at the entrance of Auckland Harbour. #602939 - Kawau Island is in the Hauraki Gulf, close to the north-eastern coast of the North Island of New Zealand. At its closest point it lies 1.4 km (0.87 mi) off the coast of the North Auckland Peninsula, just south of Tawharanui Peninsula, and about 8 km (5.0 mi) by sea journey from Sandspit Wharf, and shelters Kawau Bay to the north-east of Warkworth. It is 40 km (25 mi) north of Auckland. Mansion House in the Kawau Island Historic Reserve is an important historic tourist attraction. Almost every property on the Island relies on direct access to the sea. There are only two short roads serving settlements at Schoolhouse Bay and South Cove, and most people have private wharves for access to their front door steps. - The island is named after the Māori word for the shag (cormorant) bird. - Kawau, though providing little arable land, was well-favoured by Māori for its beautiful surrounding waters, with battles over the island common from the 17th century on. - Copper was mined on the island after discovery in the 1842, in the first years of European ownership. With imported miners and their families from Wales and Cornwall, the mining settlement finally reached a maximum of around 300 people, before problems with shipping and mine flooding (despite the construction of a pump house) closed the mine again in 1855. In 1844/45 the island produced about 7,000 pounds of copper which was about a third of Auckland's exports for that year. The island was bought a few years later by Sir George Grey, Governor of New Zealand, in 1862 as a private retreat. Grey extended the original copper mine manager's house (built 1845) to create the Mansion House, which still stands, and made the surrounding land into a botanical and zoological park, importing many plants and animals. The house changed hands several times after Grey, and decayed increasingly, but has been restored and furnished to its state in the period of Governor Grey and is now in public ownership in the Kawau Island Historic Reserve, administered by the New Zealand Department of Conservation. The reserve is public land and covers 10% of the Island, and includes the old copper mine, believed to be the site of New Zealand's first underground metalliferous mining venture (1844). The ruins of the mine's pumphouse are registered as a Category I heritage structure. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kawau_Island) Whites Pictorial Reference of New Zealand: Representative Airviews of New Zealand Cities and Boroughs - Whites Pictorial Reference has been produced to tell a new story - a modern story. Aerial photography has been utilised to show where New Zealanders live and the countryside from which comes their wealth. Most important, it also illustrates most vividly the Dominion's growing cities and towns, but perhaps more to the point it shows that there is still plenty of room for further development... Author: White Leo (compiled) Click the link provided at the top to purchase the book through the MAD on New Zealand Shop - Supporting New Zealand Authors and Artists