Character Parts

The tiny Northland town of Kohukohu has more than its share of residents who are talented, creative, enterprising and sometimes just plain eccentric.

Words: Sue Hoffart  Photographs: Mark Smith

On the northern shore of the Hokianga Harbour, a dot-on-the-map town embraces a cluster of extraordinary immigrants. Some residents of Kohukohu, population 182, claim a spiritual force lured them to the area. Others talk of the Northland town’s splendid isolation or the unusually strong sense of community and bonds with Maori tangata whenua. Most mention the richness of living alongside people such as the Scottish engineer turned glass sculptor and the Italian-trained designer. Or the artistic Australian nurse with a political science degree. Or the English travel writer, the fiddle player who studied Viking tool-making or the guitar-playing real estate agent who has dreadlocks and a distinctive penchant for wearing lavalava.

Of course there are people who have lived in the area for generations. But an unusually large proportion of villagers have left other parts of New Zealand or Japan, Israel, America or one of at least a dozen other nations to catch the ferry or take the winding back roads that lead to Kohukohu.

Peter Huckle

On the main drag, just along from the general store and sole café, part-time volunteer librarian Peter Huckle issues books and gathers local gossip. The 62-year-old Englishman has a PhD in electronics and a career that has seen him work in the American space programme and head 200 staff in a multi-billion-dollar company. He is credited with designing a precursor to the html system in which web pages are now written and he worked in California’s high-tech Silicon Valley when it was primarily orchard land. Most recently he grew wheat on the Isle of Wight while running a couple of internet-based businesses.

An internet romance brought the divorced father of four to Kohukohu, where he and New Zealand-born partner Lesley Curnow are building a house together. Family ties draw him back to the United Kingdom for several months each year but he says Kohukohu is home. "Coming here I found, for the first time in my life, that I’m living in a community that is totally supportive and accepting of everyone," he says. "People can be themselves here. [In England] I grew up in government housing, in a tiny little bedroom but with floor-to-ceiling electronics, from the age of eight or nine. I was sort of a nerd before it was socially acceptable to be a boffin. The great thing about this place is there are a lot of people like that."

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