Walk #86, 16th April 2022

There are two tracks, I recommend the nature trail.

The Jubilee track is straight up for an hour with no views. It was a nice walk with friends, great for my friend who wanted exercise, meh for me.

This walk had the most fungi I’ve seen anywhere.

At the start of the walk is a large rata, the only one in the reserve.

The Patupaiarahe

This mountain used to be the home of the ancient patupaiarehe. They weren’t fairies, some looked like Maori, some like Europeans.

The name Ngongotaha is derived from an encounter with them. It means to drink water from the calabash, which was offered to Ihenga (the grandson of Tamatekapua) by a patupaiarehe maiden when he was exploring the country around Rotorua. There’s no water up the top of the mountain and Ihenga was thirsty.

Normally the elusive patupaiarehe had no truck with Maori but Ihenga made friends with them and he eventually lived near the mountain on the banks of the Waitete Stream.

The patupaiarehe left the mountain and moved west after the Maori accidentally or deliberately burned them out.

Walk: Rotorua #23

Links

Mt Ngongotaha Jubilee Track

The Fairy Folk of Ngongotaha Mountain

“The name of that tribe of Patu-paiarehe was Ngati-Rua, and the chiefs of that tribe in the days of my ancestor Ihenga were Tuehu, Te Rangitamai, Tongakohu, and Rotokohu. The people were very numerous; there were a thousand or perhaps many more on Ngongotaha.

They were an iwi atua (a god-like race, a people of supernatural powers). In appearance some of them were very much like the Maori people of today; others resembled the pakeha race. The colour of most of them was kiri puwhero (reddish skins), and their hair had the red or golden tinge which we call uru-kehu.

Some had black eyes, some blue like fair-skinned Europeans. They were about the same height as ourselves. Some of their women were very beautiful, very fair of complexion, with shining fair hair.

They wore chiefly the flax garments called pakerangi, dyed a red colour; they also wore the rough mats pora and pureke. In disposition they were peaceful; they were not a war-loving, angry people.

Their food consisted of the products of the forest, and they also came down to this Lake Rotorua to catch inanga (whitebait.)

There was one curious characteristic of these Patu-paiarehe; they had a great dread of the steam that rose from cooked food. In the evenings, when the Maori people living at Te Raho-o-te-Rangipiere and other places near the fairy abodes opened their cooking-ovens, all the Patu-paiarehe retired to their houses immediately they saw the clouds of vapour rising, and shut themselves up; they were afraid of the mamaoa—the steam.

Chapter II, The Fairy Folk of Ngongotaha Mountain

Source: Victoria University Library, Title: Fairy Folk Tales of the Maori, Author: James Cowan

Story: Patupaiarehe : Mt Ngongotaha

Fairy Springs: so named because the Patupaiarehe would descend the slopes of Mount Ngongotaha to visit the springs at night and to drink from the waters.

Nearby Rainbow Springs: A rainbow would appear over the spring, therefore Rainbow Springs is another name given to this location.

Unfortunately the wildlife park that was here has been closed after 90 years of business – because of the Covid lockdowns.