Māori have long used the upper Waitematā Harbour as a portage between that harbour and the Kaipara Harbour, via the Ngongitepata Portage and the Rangitopuni Creek. The Anglican Reverend Samuel Marsden also used that route in 1820 to visit the Kaipara area and there is now a new subdivision by that old portage.

Pākeha developed timber mills in the upper Waitemata Harbour and later a flour mill from 1855 to 1888 at Riverhead. That flour mill became a flax mill from 1889 to 1899 and then a paper mill from 1900 to 1923. A hotel started at Riverhead in 1863 and there were gum fields nearby. Limeburners Bay housed a pottery works from 1863 to 1929 and there was another pottery works at Scott Point from 1872 to 1879.
However, economic opportunities for transport operators were few and far between. The Waitematā Steam Ferry Company briefly ran a service in the Riverhead area in 1865 and Captain Jeremiah Casey followed from 1866 to 1878. A Lake Pupuke resident, George Quick (later a major initial shareholder in the Devonport Steam Ferry Company) ran a horse and coach service in the Riverhead area from 1873 to 1875. However, waterborne transport suffered when the railway line from downtown Auckland to Helensville was opened in 1880.
Beyond Riverhead into the Kaipara, Ewen Alison (Chair of the Devonport Steam Ferry company since 1881) became managing director of the Northern Union Steamboat Company from 1892 to 1897. That Company served Helensville, Dargaville, the Northern Wairoa, Otamatea and Port Albert.
In early 1892, the Devonport Steam Ferry Company experimented with Sunday outings to Riverhead via Ponsonby, but this wasn’t financially viable. That company ran another (this time successful) service from February 1896 and in March 1897 purchased Pine (from 1950 renamed Herald) Island as a destination for day trips. These excursion runs lasted until February 1940, in the early days of the Second World War, and the company finally sold the island in 1943. There had been an attempt at a subdivision of their island from 1925, but this failed.
In 1892 Bradney and Binns started their local steamer service, but by 1934 they too could no longer compete with road transport. The Upper Harbour Ferry Company was formed in November 1925, in essence as a subsidiary of the Devonport Steam Ferry Company, and this served wharves at Island Bay, Beach Haven, Hobsonville, Whenuapai, Pine (Herald) Island, Greenhithe and Paremoremo. Their launches carried both passengers and freight – particularly horticulture such as tomatoes and strawberries from Birkdale and surrounding area. The Upper Harbour Ferry Company was liquidated in 1934, in large part because of competition from road transport.
More recently recreational and passenger ferries have returned to the upper harbour, following on the proud tradition of those earlier services, which had been provided in large part by the Devonport Steam Ferry Company. This return was and is driven both by population growth in the upper harbour area and a political commitment by local government to use ferries for public transport. Recreational services were the first with tours from Auckland to Riverhead starting from around 1998. This was followed by a short-lived commuter ferry service for Beach Haven residents from 2003 to 2004, and from 2004 West Harbour now benefits from a regular commuter ferry service to the Downtown Ferry Terminal. Since 3 February 2013, Hobsonville Point and Beach Haven wharves have also benefitted from a regular commuter ferry service to the same terminal.
David Balderston’s latest book ‘The Upper Harbour Ferries of Auckland’ (ngoiro@hotmail.com) provides a very detailed overview of the various ferry and launch services over the years.

By David Verran