Waiake is one of the northernmost suburbs of the North Shore, in Auckland, New Zealand. It is located in the East Coast Bays between the suburbs of Browns Bay to the south and Torbay to the north. It has a beach (named Waiake Beach), which looks out to the Tor, a presque-isle at the north end of the beach that becomes an island at high tide. Waiake is under the local governance of the Auckland Council.
Geography
Waiake is a suburb of North Shore in Auckland, New Zealand, adjacent to Waiake Beach. It is in the East Coast Bays area, surrounded by Torbay, New Zealand to the north and west, and Browns Bay to the south. Deep Creek is a stream along the border between Torbay and Waiake that flows eastwards into Waiake Beach.
The bay to the east of the suburb is called Torbay, which has a small coastal stack presque-isle known as the Tor. The south-eastern headland of the suburb is called Tipau Point.
The land at Torbay is primarily made up of Waitemata Group sandstone, which formed during the Miocene approximately 16 to 22 million years ago on the seafloor. Gradually, the seafloor was uplifted due to tectonic forces. Prior to human settlement, pōhutukawa trees were a major feature of Waiake.
History
Māori history
Māori settlement of the Auckland Region began around the 13th or 14th centuries. The North Shore was settled by Tāmaki Māori, including people descended from the Tainui migratory canoe and ancestors of figures such as Taikehu and Peretū. During his arrival in New Zealand, Hoturoa, captain of the Tainui, guided the waka to the Waiake Lagoon (Deep Creek), which was a safe anchorage for the canoe.
Many of the early Tāmaki Māori people of the North Shore identified as Ngā Oho. While the poor soils of the upper North Shore hindered dense settlement, traditional resources in the area included fish, shellfish and marine birds. The headland near the Tor to the east of Waiake is a known pā site.
The traditional name for the wider Torbay area is , meaning "Eternal Spring", referring to a pool upstream of Deep Creek known as a good location to catch kahawai. An alternative explanation of the name is that the name means "Waters of Akeake", referring to Dodonaea viscosa (akeake / broadleaf hopbush). The mouth of Deep Creek is a kāinga site. Stone adzes have been found at the river mouth, and remains of waka and paddles have been found in Deep Creek. Lonely Track Road was an overland (pathway), linking the Lucas Creek in the north-western Waitematā Harbour to the streams of the east coast, such as the Awaruku Creek.
The warrior Maki migrated from the Kāwhia Harbour to his ancestral home in the Auckland Region, likely sometime in the 17th century. Maki conquered and unified many the Tāmaki Māori tribes as Te Kawerau ā Maki, including those of the North Shore. After Maki's death, his sons settled different areas of his lands, creating new hapū. His younger son Maraeariki settled the North Shore and Hibiscus Coast, who based himself at the head of the Ōrewa River. Maraeariki's daughter Kahu succeeded him, and she is the namesake of the North Shore, ("The Greater Lands of Kahu"), Many of the iwi of the North Shore, including Ngāti Manuhiri, Ngāti Maraeariki, Ngāti Kahu, Ngāti Poataniwha, Ngāi Tai Ki Tāmaki and Ngāti Whātua, can trace their lineage to Kahu.
By the 18th century, the Marutūāhu iwi Ngāti Paoa had expanded their influence to include the islands of the Hauraki Gulf and the North Shore. During these events in the latter 18th century, Tipau Point to the east of Browns Bay was the location of Ōmangaia Pā, a defensive pā site associated with the Ngāti Tai Manawaiti chief, Te Hehewa. After periods of conflict, peace had been reached by the 1790s. The earliest contact with Europeans began in the late 18th century, which caused many Tāmaki Māori to die of , respiratory diseases. During the early 1820s, most Māori of the North Shore fled for the Waikato or Northland due to the threat of war parties during the Musket Wars. Most people had returned by the late 1820s and 1830s.
A traditional story involving the Tor at Waiake involves Moeroa, the beautiful daughter of a local chief. Moeroa used to sit on the cliffs of the Tor, where she sung with tūī and korimako, and wove mats. One day, the cliffs gave way and she fell to her death, after which the island became tapu. The events likely occurred in the early 19th century.