Lake Tarawera, Rotorua

Walk 49, 31st October 2020

Lake Tarawera walk to rock paintings

There are two walks from the landing, the talk to the right takes you to the place where Green Lake flows into Lake Tarawera. The walk to the left takes you to Maori Rock paintings. The sign by the Tuhourangi iwi is very faded but this is what it says:

The rock art was restored by archeologist Trevor Hoskings. In 2009 Trevor Hosking, of Taupō, received the Queen’s Service Medal for services to the conservation of historic places. Mr Hosking had been actively involved in the restoration and protection of historic places in the Taupō area for more than 50 years. He worked to ensure the protection and restoration of local sites of significance, including the Armed Constabulary Hall, burial caves on Motutaiko Island, Rauhoata Cave, the Napier/Taupō Armed Constabulary Redoubts, the Te Porere Redoubt, the Tarawera rock drawings, and the Opepe Canoe. Source: Turangi Museum

The Tarawera rock art is mentioned in his book A Museum Underfoot, page 137-140.

Walk: Rotorua 28

Links

Rock Art

Rock art in New Zealand is generally associated with the limestone shelters of the South Island, but already the New Zealand Archaeological Association lists 140 rock art sites in the North Island, most in the central plateau region … There are differences. The North Island has more carvings, the South Island more drawings. Abstract motifs dominate in the North, more figurative forms in the South.

And there are regional variations. In Tokoroa and Rotorua, drawings and carvings of waka are common—the best known being the vivid armada drawn in red on the edge of Lake Tarawera—while in Taranaki, the spiral, circles and other “classic” Maori motifs predominate.

Set in stone, NZGeo.com

The Pink and White Terraces

The famed Pink and White Terraces, an eighth wonder of the world, were buried by the Tarawera eruption.

The Pink and White Terraces: Sound Archives: the Mt Tarawera Eruption

The Tarawera Eruption

Mount Tarawera in Eruption, June 10, 1886, from Wairoa

A phantom canoe was believed to have been seen by tourists at Lake Tarawera eleven days before Mount Tarawera erupted in 1886.

The Eruption of Tarawera (2000) Part 1

Te Wairoa

The Buried Village, Te Wairoa

The village of Te Wairoa was established in 1848 by Christian missionaries as a model village. It was buried in the 1886 eruption.

This stone pataka was one of the first structures to be excavated. It was discovered by Vi Smith, the landowner while they were having a picnic by the Te Wairoa stream.

Stone pataka at the Buried Village, Te Wairoa

The pataka is much older than the village structures and was probably built by the first people to live in the lakes area. See my post on Lake Okataiana.

There’s another stone pataka on the south-east shore of Green Lake, near the former village of Epiha.

Stone pataka at Green Lake

The Maori record that the original people, Ngati Ruatamore, were exterminated at Te Wairoa.

The carving below in the Buried Village museum is also much older. As you can see from the diorama, Lake Okataina is in the same area.

Wenderholm, Rodney

Walk 47, 10th October 2020

The park contains a historic house, a lovely patch of bush on the headland, an old pa site and a beach lined with old Pohutukawa trees.

There’s a choice of three walks, we chose the perimeter walk. It’s not flat but there are great coastal views of the Hauraki Gulf when you climb the hill to the old pa site.

The pa was called Kakaha Pa. All that can be seen is an overgrown defensive ditch. Like so many Maori settlements and pa in this area, it was raided by the better armed Ngapuhi of Northland and the local tribe was decimated.

The head of the pou represents rangitira (chiefs) who have stood on this land. The outer shell represents the many waka (canoes) that have landed on these shores. The two embracing and intertwining figures on the other side represent husband and wife, and arranged marriages to form alliances or settle differences. The natural splits in the log represent two awa (rivers) that run either side of Wenderholm – the Waiwera and Puhoi Rivers.

A toka (rock) has been places in the mouth of Waiwera representing the motu (island) named Mahurangi.

This is another walk not far from where I live.

Walk: Auckland 1

History

For centuries two small iwi, Ngati Rongo and Te Kawerau a Maki, occupied Maungatauhoro and its environs. Te Kawerau a Maki eventually migrated south, into the Waitakere Ranges; Ngati Rongo remained. In 1825 Hongi Hika brought his army of muskets down into Tamaki Makarau, through the rohe of Ngati Rongo. The local rangatira Murupaenga confronted Hika’s men with only a stone patu. Murupaenga died skirmishing in the Mahurangi River, which flows into the sea a few kilometres north of Maungatauhoro. He is buried on the hill, along with many other tupuna. Source: Waiting in the wood

Last rangatira of Mahurangi and his hapū

Hone Heke Memorial Park, Kaikohe Hill

Walk 44, 1st Oct 2020

Kaikohe is named after Kohekohe trees, when Ngapuhi survivors at Pakinga Pa subsisted on Kohekohe berries after a raid by a Ngati Whatua war party.

At the back of the park there’s a memorial to Hone Heke Ngapua, a great-grand nephew of Hone Heke, the warrior who chopped down the flagpole at Russell. Ngapua backed the Kotahitanga movement which aimed at Maori separatism.

Walk: Northland 20

The Battle of Ruapekapeka

Flagstaff Hill, Russell

Arai te Uru Reserve, Omapere

Walk 42, 29th September 2020

This is a walk to the site of the former Signal Station. From that spot there’s a sweeping view of Hokianga Heads, the coast, Tasman Sea and the villages of Omapere and Opononi.

Arai Te Uru is the name of the Taniwha (mythological sea monster) which guards the harbour entrance with its sister Taniwha Niwa which stands guard on the opposite shore.

Signal Station Track: The Signal Station was in operation from 1838 – 1951 to guide ships over through the treacherous harbour entrance until being replaced by an automated lighthouse. Today all that remains is a few upright timbers and a horizontal beam.

The full name of Hokianga harbour is Hokianga-nui-o-Kupe”, meaning “the final departing place of Kupe. Kupe is a legendary figure, a Polynesian chief from Hawaiki who was involved in the discovery of New Zealand.

Each canoe and tribe had its tuahu, a sacred place marked by a stone. This huge stone is the tuahu of Kupe, erected as a memorial to him at Pakanae marae, near Opononi. It was moved here in the 1960s from the upper Hokianga Harbour.

Traditions about Kupe appear among iwi (peoples) of the following areas: Northland, Ngāti Kahungunu, Tainui, Whanganui-Taranaki, Rangitāne, and the South Island. Details about him differ from iwi to iwi.

Early accounts from the Ngāti Kahungunu area consistently place Kupe on board the Tākitimu canoe or name as his companions people who are strongly associated with the Tākitimu. The few references to Kupe in South Island sources indicate that the traditions are substantially the same as those of Ngāti Kahungunu, with whom Ngāi Tahu, the main tribe of the South Island, had strong genealogical and trading links.

The local iwi is Te Roroa, a sub tribe of Ngati Whatua. They occupy the region between the Kaipara and Hokianga.

Walk: Northland 23

Links:

Hokianga Heads area

Notes:

The Burial cave near the pilot station: On the southside of Hokianga Heads there was a cave in a perpendicular cliff, which was the burial place of the people of Hokianga from time immemorial. Ramaroa was the name of the cave. To reach the cave men were let down over the cliff with a rope. When that part of the country was purchased by John Martin as a pilot station in March, 1832, the people removed the bones to another place, and it became common (noa) or free from tapu. Source: https://kaihuvalleyhistory.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/1-from-the-sea-we-came.pdf

Whiria Pa, Episode 20, Musket Wars #3

Ngapuhi trace their lineage back to Rahiri, who was born at Whiria Pa.
“Hong Hika tried to conquer Whiria in 1813, without success. Join me in a drone over Whiria where ancient earthworks are still clearly visible.”

It’s not far from Pakanae marae where the stone tuahu (memorial) to Kupe is.

There were two explorers named Kupe. The original discoverer of New Zealand named Kupe flourished some ten generations before Toi: THE ACCOUNT OF KUPE AND TAINUI. Source: The Journal of the Polynesian Society, Volume 28 1919 > Volume 28, No. 110 > The account of Kupe and Tainui, by George Graham, p 111-116

There were people here before the arrival of Kupe.

The article from the Journal of the Polynesian Society states that Kupe and his people discovered people at various places, according to elder Tati Wharekawa; “These people were the Mamoe, the Turehu, the Tahurangi, the Poke-pokewai, the Patupaiarehe, the Turepe and the Hamoamoa. They lived on the fronds and berries of the trees, and the roots of the earth. They were expert in preparing such foods, and in snaring and spearing the birds in forest and fish in stream.”

Monica Matamua of the Ngati Hotu tribe confirms this. She said that everywhere Kupe went, he found the land already occupied by people, some were fair skinned tribes. Here’s a close up of the Kupe memorial stone, and Monica Matamau’s account.

Wairere Falls

Walk 19: Wairere Falls, 5th Sept 2019

The Wairere Falls in the Kaimai ranges are the highest falls in the North Island of NZ.

Besides the grandeur of the falls, this site has one of the most important stories in the history of New Zealand. NZ Christian history and culture is built on it.

I tell Torore’s story on the video.

Walk: Waikato 6

Links

Wairere Falls Track

Tarore’s story: NZ history and culture is built on it.

Tarore was from the Ngati Haua tribe. Her father was Ngakuku, a nephew of the great Te Waharoa, and himself a chief of the Ngati Haua of Tainui.

When Tarore’s little book came down to Otaki, the warrior chief Te Rauparaha heard the message and built the Rangiatea Church.

If you would like to receive your own personal copy of the Tarore Story it will be posted free of charge to you by those dedicated to her memory.

Lake Okataina

Walk 17 – Lake Okataina, 17 May 2019

From the boards: Okataina means the lake of laughter. It was an important link in pre-European times where canoes were carried from Tarawera to Okataina, and from Okataina to Rotoiti. Okataina road follows one of these ancient portage routes.

In 1823 Te Koutu Pa was attacked by Hongi Hika using a portage route.

Met at the Te Koutu pa site, Lake Okataina

The lake has no surface outlet – it drains by seepage through fissured lava towards Lake Tarawera which is about 20 metres lower in elevation. Because of this, the lake levels fluctuate dramatically with the rainfall.

In 1883 the area was covered in volcanic ash from the eruption of Mount Tarawera.

There are small caves at the pa site. Tarawera ash has made it appear that caves were dug below ground level when in reality you had to step up to enter them. Some caves are characterised by a slightly domed ceiling. Some are L shaped with straight walls and a perfect gable ceiling, the outside is characterised by an extra recess for the door.

Ngati Tarawhai, a sub-tribe of Te Arawa are the principal iwi associated with the Okataina district. In 1921 they gifted the foreshores of Lake Okataina to the crown to be set aside as reserves.

♦

Lake Okataina panorama

Toitu te whenua – leave the land undisturbed.

New Zealand – Ancient Carved Maori Gateway or Waharoa – 20ft high – Te Koutou Pah (or Pa – a village of more commonly, a hill fort), Rotorua – now in the Auckland Museum. Date: 1920s

Walk: Rotorua 29

★★★★★

History

In previous times this area was settled by different iwi (tribes) who either pre-dated or derived from Te Arawa Waka. According to Ngati Tarawhai history, the first people to settle in the area was an iwi called Te Tini o Maruiwi (the myriads of Maruiwi.) They were followed by Te Tini o Ruatomore (the myriads of Ruatomore) who were to later adopt the name Ngati Kahupungapunga. Source: Lake Okataina Scenic Reserve history

The last stand of Ngāti Kahupungapunga was at Pohaturoa Rock.

THE MARUIWI FOLK OF THE BAY OF PLENTY DISTRICT: Volume 37 1928 > Volume 37, No. 146 > The Maruiwi folk of the Bay of Plenty District, by Elsdon Best, p 194-225

Hinehopu / Hongi’s Track

Links

Entrance to storage Rua – Te Koutu pa

Maruiwi

Carved gateway Lake Okataina Koutu Pa taken about 1904

Te Koutu Pā

Click to access lake-okataina-scenic-reserve-cultural-history-p10-19.pdf

Mount Pohaturoa

Walk 5: Mount Pohaturoa, 8th Sept 2018

Click here for video

Travelling home from our holiday at the Chateau in the early spring of 2018, we pulled off SH1 at Atiamuri, the site of a dam and a prominent hill called Pohaturoa Rock. I’d zoomed past it for years without realising its significance.

The hill brooded over the flowing dark green water of the Waikato river. Eventually we found a trail along the river bank but the history from the sign board didn’t say a lot. Reading it I understood some people got killed;

“Ngāti Kahupungapunga (possibly a surviving Moa hunter tribe) occupied this site as their final stronghold but lack of food finally forced them to abandon their refuge and only five escaped with their lives. The tribe were killed by invading Ngati Raukawa of the Tainui tribe, and by 1840 the site was left empty.”

I had to dig to find out more about the tribes of this area.

The information board on the South Waikato trails seemed more interesting. There were five Waikato trails and we could have followed this path to the Whakamaru Dam if we’d had time.

As well it informed us of “talking poles,” a series of carved poles at Tokoroa, the next town north on State Highway 1, where a fierce looking pou or pole represented Raukawa, the main Tainui tribe of south Waikato.

Even though the town of Tokoroa is named after a chief of the Ngāti Kahupungapunga, there is nothing to learn of them. It goes to show history is written by the victors.

A newspaper article from 2001 proclaimed the Kahupungapunga to be a people of mystery who were cut down like pines;

NZ Herald, Pohaturoa: a historical site of rare significance

“In 1995 it was decided to harvest the pines from the hill. Before work started, however, CHH staff consulted the local iwi and sent Perry Fletcher, a local historian who had first climbed the hill in 1972, to investigate the site:

“Fletcher, well, he stumbled on a historical site of rare significance. What he found were 31 whare sites, plus gardens and numerous storage pits estimated to match the number of families that once lived in the pa – a well-preserved insight into New Zealand’s pre-colonial past. Fretting that trees could fall at any time due to old age, he warned that “if these trees are not removed they will cause significant damage to the historic features.”

At last, someone was paying attention to Pohaturoa’s story.”

Source: The NZ Herald, Pohaturoa – the story of a New Zealand hill, 12 Jan 2001

The pine trees date from 1927. A photo from 1923 shows it looking quite bare. It would be nice to see the land set aside as a reserve, with a sign board about the Ngāti Kahupungapunga people and the slopes of the mountain replanted with native trees.

Walk: Central North Island 33

Who were the Ngati Kahupungapunga?

“The first people believed to have arrived in the region, says local historian Perry Fletcher, are known as the Tini o Toi. “That was just a loose name for these ancient people. They were spread throughout the country from one of the original peoples – you had Kupe and you had Toi,” he says.

Some say that Arawa explorer Tia came there and his children lived in the area, but the first people known to occupy Pohaturoa were a people of mystery, the Kahupungapunga. None can say where they came from, and in a final stand at Pohaturoa 400 years ago they were cut down like today’s pines, suffering what the Waitangi Tribunal called “their final extinction as a tribal identity.” Source: NZ Herald, Pohaturoa – the story of a New Zealand hill.

It appeared the Ngati Kahupungapunga were just a small, transient bunch of hunter gatherers. But were they? The following year one of our walks took us to the Lake Okataina. The information board at the start of the track stated the first people to settle in the area were the myriads of Maruiwi followed by myriads of Ruatamore, who were later to adopt the name Kahupungapunga. Myriads meant an innumerable number of these people.

So the Kahupungapunga tribe weren’t just a small group at Atiamuri. Where did they go? In the quiet of the lockdowns of 2020 I decided to do some research.

Here’s what I found: Ngati Kahupungapunga

Related walks:

The name Pungapunga only exists now as the names of localities and a river. The Pungapunga once lived around Lake Okataina in the Rotorua Lakes area. There’s a track from the Outdoor Education Centre which we explored called the Waipungapunga track.

Links

Sidestep: Atiamuri Stones

Gilbert Mair’s account of the Atiamuri Stones

Atiamuri

Roadside Stories: Hatupatu’s Rock

Roadside Stories: Tokoroa, timber town

Te Arai Regional Park

Walk 1: Te Arai Regional Park, 18 March 2018

Te Arai Beach, looking south

Click here for the video

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