Museum: Big Dig celebrates 25 years

 

Mangawhai Harbour will celebrate two significant anniversaries this year, highlighted in displays at the Mangawhai Museum.

February 11 will see the 25th anniversary of the Big Dig.

A severe storm in 1978, compounded by Cyclone Bola in 1987, left the harbour in poor condition with shallow harbour entrances along the Mangawhai Spit and the original harbour entrance silted up.

The harbour was dying and, faced with inaction from local and regional councils and the Department of Conservation, in 1991 a determined group of local men took the initiative to rescue the harbour and close the rogue breaches using bulldozers, diggers, scrapers, tractors and other sand moving equipment.

Immortalised as the Big Dig, man and machine laboured for four days to reopen the harbour entrance and repair the Spit.

Their success was short-lived as the entrance silted up again, but the Big Dig was the catalyst for the Mangawhai Harbour Restoration Society to be formed, and their 5-year community project to rescue the harbour.

This project culminated 20 years ago, on 29 June 1996, with the completion of the man-made bund wall along the harbour side of the Mangawhai Spit.

To relive this important story in Mangawhai’s history, check out the special displays at the Mangawhai Museum, including a 10-minute video presentation created by local filmmaker Perry Trotter and featuring some of those magnificent men involved in the Big Dig.


CAN YOU DIG IT? Some of the 30-plus sand moving vehicles that assembled at 6am on February 11, 1991, to reopen the sand-blocked northern entrance to Mangawhai Harbour.