Awanui (St. Joseph's) Church cemetery
Pos S 32° 2.724'
E 173° 15.354'
Awanui is a crossroads township in a great many ways. Today it has the junction of the two main highways, one running down the east coast and the other south through Kaitaia and over the Mangamukas Ranges.In the past is was a vital coastal port; today's meandering river was yesterday's main highway for the only way to travel south was via coastal shipping, and ports like Awanui and Mangonui and Whangaroa were important places. In the case of Awanui steamers and smaller sailing vessels navigated the winding waterway out into Kaimauma Harbour and thence out to sea.
It has also been a common point for social interaction between Maori and Pakeha who learned to help each other in strangeness of a colonial outpost of a barely understood empire. Later a third element was added as Dalmatians came to dig kauri gum (amber) from the swamps and afterwards stayed to build and work the land even as their homeland disintegrated...
