Te Arai Regional Park

Walk 1: Te Arai Regional Park, 18 March 2018

Te Arai Beach, looking south

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A rocky promontory separates two deserted beaches. The walk along the ridge above the car park gives stunning views of the Pacific Ocean and coastline stretching all the way from Northland to Rodney.

Walk: Northland 33

Te Arai means “a veil” or “shelter.”

History: This is from an account of a speech by Eru Maihi, a Ngati-Whatua chief in 1909: “Tahuhu, chief of the Moekakara canoe, landed near there and set up a temporary shelter (arai). He there also set up this rongo stone found there as an altar to safeguard his folk against the witchcraft of the people of Kupe and Toi, who already lived thereabouts.”

The rongo stone from Te Arai

This stone originally came from Te Arai

The stone is now at Cornwall Park, Auckland. It is called “Te Toka-tu-whenua,” The stone which has travelled around.

The pa it came from is Te Arai o Tahuhu Pa: This pa or hillfort protected the Maori coastal settlements north and south of here. This area was settled by Manaia and his Polynesian tribe who arrived in the Moekaraka Waka or ocean going migration canoe which landed near present day Goat Island south of the pa. The pa is named after Tahuhu who was Manaia’s son. Their descendents are the Ngati Manuhiri hapu (sub tribe) of the Ngatiwai tribe. Te Arai o Tahuhu Pa is reached by footpath over Te Arai Regional reserve from the car park areas to the north and south of the reserve. It is located on the high ground above the coast and the defensive ditches and embankments can be seen to the northern side where pine trees have been planted and to the eastern side where a long ditch defends that approach.

The Te Arai area was originally cleared of the forest by the Maori, then planted in pines in the 1930’s.

Te Uri o Hau is a Northland hapu of Ngati Whatua whose area of interest is located in the Northern Kaipara region. Te Uri o Hau exercises kaitiakitanga for the purposes of the Resource Management Act 1991. The iwi had aquired the land for development as part of a Treaty settlement in 2000.

This is the same iwi historically recorded as offering up blocks of land for sale to the Government, with the old men of the tribe pointing out the boundaries to be defined. The Government Surveyor of the Kaipara district wrote about it in the Journal of the Polynesian Society (1896).

The Fairy tern, Tara-iti

Te Arai is a vital nesting ground for our shorebirds. It’s also the home of the Katipo spider and the critically endangered Fairy Tern.

Despite this, a billionaire’s golf course was built at the northern end of Te Arai. The Fairy Terns were severely affected by decisions made by the course’s developer, Te Arai North Ltd – which was also behind an adjacent housing development.

The company’s investors include the club’s American billionaire owner, Ric Kayne, high-profile property developer John Darby, of Queenstown, and hapu Te Uri o Hau.

Te Arai North Ltd entered a regional park in 2016 with diggers and loads of boulders, building an illegal “ford” over Te Ārai Stream on public land that is destined to become a regional park. Opponents, who maintained the structure in the stream was illegal, called it a “weir” or “dam”, and argued it was disrupting the life cycle of fish. Those fish are crucial to the survival of the fairy tern, which are known to feed and flock at the Te Ārai Stream mouth.

Despite grave fears held by fairy tern advocates, “Green” MP Eugenie Sage – the Conservation and Land Information Minister, refused to step in. Source: David Williams

It took court action and five years to get this illegal dam removed. Obviously, money talks.

Ric Kayne owns the luxury Tara Iti Golf Club where former PM John Key took former US President Barack Obama for a round of golf in 2018.

Source: Illegal dam in regional park causes court confusion

Ironically, the Golf Club was named after the Fairy tern, whose Maori name is Tara-iti.

So much for the Resource Act and exercising kaitiakitanga.

Kaitiakitanga means guardianship, protection, preservation or sheltering. It is a way of managing the environment, based on the traditional Māori world view.

Who are guardians for tara iti, the fairy tern? Only a small group of people, many of them volunteers, stand between it and oblivion. I hope the birds can come back from the brink. There are only forty left.

Should overseas investors be allowed to buy New Zealand land?

John Key, Te Arai foreign ownership row