near the present Tennis club. In the very early days there was no road to Bucklands Beach but by the 1930s roads on the beach were made of shells. After World War II the farmland at Bucklands Beach was mainly used for drystock up until 1963 when the land was subdivided for sections. The Bentons were the last farmers to actually farm the land. Bucklands Beach has always been an attractive place for holiday makers. Racing club Before World War I a steamer, the Wakatere, ran from the city to the old 20-metre-long wooden jetty at the end of Wharf Road (the old piles are still visible after a storm). The Bucklands established a private oval horse race track in the flat area near Hattaway Avenue. The front straight was on Morrow Avenue and lower Devon Road was the south end of the oval. It had a permanent start/finish box elevated on piles 10 metres above the track at the lower end of Lynton Road. This was a location of the Auckland Racing Club. The first recorded meeting was in 1864 when his horse owning neighbours in Howick were invited to compete. In 1889 a totalizator meeting was organized with the help of the Pakuranga Hunt to help celebrate the end of a severe recession. At that time the track was called the East Tamaki Racing Course. In the summers of the 1920s, car owning Aucklanders would make the long trip from the city dressed in their finery to watch the racing. In the 1920s and 1930s well-off Aucklanders such as the Pattens bought sections and constructed baches near the beaches where they lived over summer. Cliff Patten was a farrier who had strong connections with the horse racing fraternity. He worked for Bucklands Stock and Station Agents and became familiar with the area when the Bucklands ran their annual Christmas trip by boat to Bucklands Beach in the 1920s. He built a bach by the Beach on the Parade in 1928. World War II During World War II when it was feared the city may be bombed some families moved to Bucklands Beach on a semi permanent basis. Other families at the beach then were the Burgesses, the Inders, the Hancocks and the Eliots. About 1942 just after the Japanese entered the war, the wooden bridge at Wharf road was taken down to stop a landing by Japanese. Concrete