When I did this watercolour of the Dargaville Post Office it was just that. But, as with so many Post Offices in New Zealand, it was later de-commissioned and is now an office complex listed in the top category of the NZ Historic Places Trust. Saved, but just another example of how NZ Post has lost its pride and lost its way.
It was built in 1914 and was then probably the most substantial building in a town that otherwise had little else of note and was declining after years of comfort associated with the exploitation of kauri forest and kauri gum deposits.
It's an interesting place, Dargaville, before any decent roads were built it was possible to travel there from Auckland by way of Riverhead (near Coatesville), portage over the hills to Helensville, and then by barge up the huge Kaipara Harbour to Dargaville on the Wairoa River and thereby into darkest Northland. Terra incognita.
© DON DONOVAN
donovan@ihug.co.nz
