Joining the two old settlements of Howick and Panmure. The Kebble Story
In early 1970s, as a young couple about to be married, we settled on the new Neil Housing subdivision being pegged out in the Cascades Road area. Our build, one of the first to be started, had cows in the paddocks behind us, now Lloyd Elsmore Park and views as far south as Papatoetoe.
Slightly behind us, the old farm cottage had been incorporated into the subdivision with Bell House, Pakuranga being a few paddocks away. I was a keen shooter; so Mr Bell would allow me to sight-in my rifle on the farm as long as the horses weren’t in foal.
Cascades Road was a dead-end, divided into North and South by the tidal creek at the back boundary of the Pakuranga Golf Club. The bridge that joined the two did not get built until approximately mid-1980.
The once narrow concrete road that I had travelled as a boy to the Pakuranga Health Camp, joining Panmure and Howick was, in 1970, still visible in the centre of the widened tar-seal road today.
I used to keep the rabbit population in check on large strawberry gardens where Kings Plant Barn now stands, having had to drive out through Howick to get there!
Next door to the gardens was the residence of the Reverend Hattaway, whose family had owned land (as I recall him telling me) through to Bucklands Beach. I used to regularly shoot magpies for him as they continually attacked his chickens.
Marty & Shona Kebble
