In 1967 you could buy a 4-bedroom house in Otumoetai for $6,950 with wood floors throughout and a double garage – and a new Holden to park in that garage for just under $1,100.
Ho Chi Minh was on trial for war crimes in Vietnam, and the first V-Jet Service was flying tourists to South Africa. Also in the wider world Arab and Israeli forces stood ready for war ‘in the worst Middle East crisis since the 1956 Sinai War.’
1967 was when everyone learned how to convert pounds, shillings and pence into decimal currency, with native birds and plants chosen to decorate the new dollar bills.
Hogan’s Heroes and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. created audiences for AKTV-4, and the Book Page of The Bay of Plenty Times was reviewing more books than it does today, some in great depth – like The Changing Face of the Leader in Maori Society by Dr. Maharaia Winiata (Blackwood & Janet Paul.)
International Expo ’67 was on in Montreal, with New Zealand among the participating nations. Camelot was in production in Hollywood at a cost of $US10 million – and rising. Tauranga’s new police station opened on the corner of Willow Street and Maclean, and a Maori Civic Centre was going up at the northern end of The Strand.
Sealing of the Tauranga Airport runway finished. Bananas not kiwifruit were ‘la fruit de la jour’ and there was a strong drive to promote New Zealand as a tourist attraction. A rail strike threatened, and grocers discussed rationing. Over 70 drivers signed up for safer driving courses, and Japan and New Zealand engaged in top-level talks on offshore fishing limits. The Government worried about the mass migration of Maori workers overseas (mainly to Australia) and about a significant drop in the birth rate, due no doubt to the pill.
The Molyneux Report expressed reservations on the viability of the Port of Tauranga as a cargo and container port, even though plans were in progress for a massive new cool store close to the docks. HMNZS Waikato returned to her home port of Tauranga decked with flags for the occasion. In two months at sea she had called to bunker at The Azores, Trinidad, Balboa, San Diego, Hawaii and Pago Pago.
Local residents voiced concerns about ‘beach dwelling sprawl’ in Tauranga, Te Puke and the Mount, and the Civil Defence issued a helpful book on what to do in the event of a disaster, and how to ensure your warnings were audible and acted upon.
The circus came to town.
Situations vacant: mainly for farming and service work, clerk or typist, and salesmen on commission – thought they also required a port captain at Mount Maunganui.
Lion was the brew for any good keen man, and Commodore his choice for a smoko. Local building firm Guinness Brothers were twenty years old.
And Tauranga Writers was formed on the 21st of June.

First published as a Tauranga Writers’ ‘Write Place’ column in The Bay of Plenty Times for Saturday 21st April 2007