When Jules Sebastian Cesar Dumont d’Urville visited the Waitemata Harbour in his ship the ‘Astrolabe’, his entry for 25 February 1827 in his ‘Voyages’ (page 153) is: “We entered [the Waitemata Harbour] and landed on the right bank [Devonport]. While M[onsieur] Lottin set up a geographical observation post on the top of a mountain [Takarunga, Mount Victoria], which we had noticed the day before from a great distance, I had a look at the country round. Although it was well covered with plenty of herbaceous plants, there were no trees growing here, only bushes. Already the heat seemed to have destroyed a great deal of the vegetation, and although the soil had every appearance of fertility, it seemed to me to lack fresh water, for all I could discover was a pool of brackish water. There were very few birds; we were only able to shoot a few shore species; we must, however, note a quail of the same type as the European bird. Going along this beach we experienced the sort of heat which we had seldom found since reaching the shores of New Zealand.” Note the absence of people.
Twenty years later, geologist Dr. Ferdinand von Hochstetter described Devonport in his book ‘New Zealand’ (published in 1867, page 249 and following): “The North Shore [Devonport] is a peninsula, and was probably formerly an island. Only a narrow, slender strip of sand connects the peninsula with the mainland. Small as it is, measuring scarcely a mile at its widest part between the Waitemata and the east-branch of Shoal Bay, it nevertheless `presents various points of attraction to the geologist. The western half consists of tertiary sandstone and shale, forming precipitous walls on the Auckland-side, in which near the high-water line small seams of lignite crop out. Farther east the tertiary strata cease, making room for a flat strand covered with muscle-shells. Those shells are piled up in heaps several feet high, and, there being no limestone in the vicinity of Auckland, they are burnt for lime. Behind the muscle-banks small extinct volcanic cones arise, the scoriae and lavas of which extend farther west to the sea. The principal one of these cones is Mount Victoria, formerly called Takarunga, a crater-cone nearly 300 feet high, upon which a flagstaff has been erected…
"Our object was to visit and to examine the most easterly of the three cones, called Takapuna by [Mäori], and 216 feet high. It forms the North-head of Auckland Harbour, is of an almost hemispherical shape and on three sides washed by the sea, from which it rises in steep ascent.It is the most interesting of the North-shore hills."
Takapuna, the North head of Auckland Harbour.
"The first eruptions were here evidently submarine, the basis of the hill round about being formed of regular layers 20 to 40 feet thick. Dinner over, we set out to ascend the flagstaff-hill or Mount Victoria. It is the highest volcanic hill on the North-shore, 283 feet high, and is called Takarunga by the natives. In former times the summit bore a pä, and it is from the fortifications of this pä that the terraces, cut along its slope 10 to 15 feet high, date, likewise a hole on the Northside of the hill about 20 feet wide and deep. The top is flat and truncated, it presents still a semi-circular crater open towards southeast, from which in the same direction several lava-streams issued forth as far as the sea, forming stony bars. The prospect from the top is truly charming. It opens a view over the whole Waitemata Harbour, and farther on, the Hauraki Gulf is visible with its islands and promontories, and the sea alive with sails of every kind.
Between Victoria Hill and Takapuna head there is a third small scoria-cone, about 100 feet high, with its crater in a tolerable state of preservation, which on the map I have styled "Heaphy Hill" in honour of Mr. C. Heaphy [now Mount Cambria]”.
He later writes: “We [then] set out to visit Lake Pupuke about five miles distant in a northerly direction.”
By David Verran
