Te Awaroa Museum

Te Awaroa Museum sits on the edge of Helensville, and it is less a single building than a small village of them. The Helensville Courthouse, Hedley House, the Headmaster's House, the Waitoki Schoolroom, the Roy Monk Building and the Hec Nichols Memorial Barn have each been saved and rebuilt on the site, so a visit means moving between rooms rather than along a corridor of glass cases. The collection follows how Polynesian and European lives shaped the Southern Kaipara — the river trade that built the town, the timber, the farms. Children tend to make straight for the barn, where the carriages are parked and one wall is hung end to end with harness, saddles, bridles and the heavy iron gear that did the work before engines. It is run by volunteers, and they are generally happy to explain what a thing was for.