New Zealand Odyssey: History at Warkworth

'New Zealand Odyssey', published in 1989 by Heinemann, was authored by me, Don Donovan, (who did the text and illustrations) and Euan Sarginson, who did the photography and design. In this series of blog posts, I will publish some of my drawings.

In 1987 riverside Warkworth, seventy kilometres north of Auckland, was a comfortable town just east of the main north road, a shopping centre for various adjacent beaches and farms. Its history goes back earlier than official colonial settlement to about 1829 when ships came to the Mahurangi River to get timber for spars.

There is a number of old buildings, not least a brace of good pubs and a courthouse, but two in particular caught my eye: one was the 1863 Masonic Lodge made of wood to look like stone and then painted to look like wood, and the other Broomfield House, built in 1870 which I sketched in black and white because I liked it better that way.

Warkworth is busier but less comfortable in 2010. It has become very popular and its main street is almost as dangerous for pedestrians as Queen Street, Auckland.

© DON DONOVAN

donovan@ihug.co.nz