Te Toto Gorge

Walk 62, 1st April 2021

Te Toto Gorge is on a winding gravel road near Raglan, further up from the famous surfing spot at Manu Bay. It’s the shortest walk with the longest coastal views. The viewing platform is built over the top of the gorge. Looking down you’ll see a fertile, sheltered amphitheatre with the remains of terraced gardens and karaka groves.

The Matakore were regarded as uri of Maui who were cultivating Mt Karioi near Whaingaroa (Raglan) at the time Kupe arrived according to Te Aotearangi Wirihana in 1888.

From the late 1700s the Ngāti Māhanga tribe occupied surrounding land.

Te Toto means “the blood.” Te Toto may be linked to the deaths of the ancients of whom one old local (from about 1860) referred to when she indicated that the Raglan petroglyph rocks were made by the old ‘kings’ that were here before they arrived. See the article from Papers Past, dated 1869 below.

Walk: Waikato 21

Links

The history

STALACTITE CAVE AT RAGLAN PETRIFIED MAORIS. Star (Christchurch), Issue 429, 29 September 1869, Page 3

Raglan Recap, Tangata Whenua : “Now there is something else related to one of these rocks (since destroyed) for it revealed a large wet cave close by that penetrates into Mount Karuni (now called Karioi). Inside are a number of calcified skeletons, 87 in total. According to the reports of the eighteen hundreds, those that found this cave and these skeletons, were surprised to learn that the local Maori did not know of their existence…but there was a story of a very great leader who lived in the area long ago. He was here alright, and long before Maori arrived in the Tainui Canoe at Kawhia Harbour and began to roam the area before dominating and chasing the locals away.”

Tattooed rocks, near Raglan, 1911 – Photograph taken by Gilmour Brothers

Sidestep, Tangata Whenua, Te Toto Gorge : “However, we want to draw attention to some place names up and down the Waikato coastline. Many are about tragedy, burning, death and sorrow. At Raglan however we have Te Toto Gorge. It means blood or bleed. Yet there are no stories or myths relating to this location in Maori folklore. All that exists are the eroded earthworks that suggest it was occupied between about 1700 and 1800. But this area was the scene of something else many hundreds of years earlier.

The original inhabitants that lived in the area were chased and forced off the cliffs and plummeted to their deaths. There the bones have lain for hundreds of years near the base of the cliffs; still buried under constant rockfall and undergrowth.”

The first people and Kupe

Kupe and his people discovered people at various places. 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. They also prepared food from the tender parts of the nikau, the tikoukou, the para and the mamaku (tree ferns).

Another name that people were called by was Te Tini-o-Toi-kai-rakau (the multitude of Toi, eater of trees). Toi being an ancestor of a section of that people. They dug the roots with long ko (spades), an implement unknown to the Maori before we came to those islands, and found those people just as Kupe had described them. Kupe was attacked by, and in return attacked those people of Karioi, near Raglan, and Aotea on the West Coast. These people were the Ngati-Matakore so-called, not the tribe of that name now living here in this island, who descend from us of “Tainui.”

Source: Volume 28 1919 > Volume 28, No. 110 > The account of Kupe and Tainui, by George Graham, p 111-116

Stone ruins

Walls of dwelling, Te Toto Gorge Stone stacked wall, Te Toto Gorge Source: David de Warenne https://www.facebook.com/david.dewarenne/media_set?set=a.1386330452060.55312.1046007263&type=3

The gardens

Te Toto Gorge Raglan A historically significant site, the Te Toto Gorge south of Raglan, New Zealand not only boasts stunning and uninterrupted views of the rugged west coast, it also provides an insight into traditional Maori gardens.

We didn’t have time to walk down to the terraced gardens, but here’s some videos from Dave Horry, a man who explored the area.

Te Toto Te Toto (the blood) is a series of three coastal amphitheatres at the foot of Mt Karioi (the lingering).

Into Te Toto Going down into the Gorge, and exploring for an afternoon.

Abel Tasman

Explanation of Mt Karioi and Abel Tasman : Why Mount Karioi is important in the ‘Six Boats’ storyline.

Abel Tasman escapes from the South Taranaki Bight/Cook Strait/Tasman Bay and runs out to sea. Then he turns east, and sees land again on 28th December. The ‘high land’ he sees is marked on his chart. He sees Mount Karioi, on the coast just south of Raglan.

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.

Waipoua Forest, Northland

Walk 43, 30th September 2020

The Waipoua Forest is the place to see giant kauri trees. The ancient trees we saw were Tane Mahuta and Te Matua Ngahere.

Tane Mahuta means ‘Lord of the Forest’ and ‘Te Matua Ngahere’ means ‘Father of the Forest.’

There are four walking tracks: Tane Mahuta which is just off the road, and the other track leads to the Four Sisters, Te Matua Ngahere and the Yakas kauri. The tracks to the Four Sisters and the Yakas Kauri were closed because of the threat of kauri dieback.

Kaitiakitanga: means guardianship, protection, preservation or sheltering. It is a way of managing the environment, based on the traditional Māori world view. The guardian of the Waipoua Forest is the Te Roroa iwi (tribe) which is part of the Ngāti Whātua confederation of tribes.

Te Roroa took over management of the Crown Forest as part of a Treaty of Waitangi Claims settlement. Te Roroa Claims Settlement Act 2008.

Stone Ruins

There are stone ruins in the Waipoua Forest area.

The late Noel Hilliam from Dargaville Museum was one of the archaeologists working on the sites in the nearby Waipoua Forest. He states that nearly half a million dollars of taxpayers money went on excavations by 37 archaeologists in 1981 and in 1983. A local Kaumatua (elder) closed the whole site down and records deposited in Wellington archives had a hold put on them for 75 years. Attempts have been made over the years to get these records released but only a few sanitized results were forth coming and all original datings (2500 BC) have been destroyed.

I did find a report from the Ministry of Justice (Te Roroa claim WAI-38) which I have linked to here: Waipoua Archeological Sites and Te Roroa History.

Here is an excerpt from section 4.1 of that report from 1990 where I’ve highlighted what jumped out at me.

It’s criminal that the sites are being destroyed and covered with pines and bracken fern. An archeological reserve was proposed in 1985 but nothing seems to have come from it and it’s very hard to find information about the stone ruins. More info is in the links below.

Walk: Northland 24 and 25

Links

Kauri Coast

Waipoua Forest

Here’s a video I made from the lookout tower on the edge of the Waipoua Forest. I could hear the chainsaws from the forestry.

Video from lookout tower

Forest lookout – Puketurehu Hill

‘Puke’ means ‘hill,’ Turehu’ are the original inhabitants of the land.

Turehu: Hoani Nahe, a Ngāti Maru (Hauraki) elder of the late 19th and early 20th centuries writes graphically of a people called the patupaiarehe and the tūrehu, who inhabited the land prior to the arrival of the Polynesian peoples. Source: TeAra, The Encyclopedia of NZ

Waipoua Whitewash, Challenging NZ History, Who were here first? “Waipoua Forest is best known for its primeval kauri trees, but there is also a major pine plantation in the forest which is wrecking the stone city. The roots of the pines are cracking ancient structures and when the pines are felled for timber, they’re likely to destroy a lot of the stone structures. Free ranging cattle are also damaging the site.” Source: elocal

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.

Cornwall Park, Auckland, Spring 2020

Walk 38, Cornwall Park, 22nd August 2020

Cornwall Park in late winter / early spring. The daffodils are out and the lambs are here. This is a working farm that surrounds One Tree Hill in Auckland City. It was gifted to the people of NZ by Sir Logan Campbell who is buried by the obelisk on the hill. This walk is with my husband and friend when we went to Auckland ciity during level 3 lock down.

The park was only half open, and the only vehicle we saw was security.

While in the park I went to see the Rongo Stone which originally came from Te Arai and belonged to an earlier race of Maori or Mauriori. It had been abandoned and Sir Logan Campbell rescued it.

Cornwall Park

The rongo stone from Te Arai

History of the park: John Logan Campbell, Auckland resident since 1840 gave the park’s 230 acres to a private trust on 10 June 1901. The adjoining Park Maungakiekie had been purchased by the national government in 1845 and since 2012 belongs to Ngā Mana Whenua o Tāmaki Makaurau Collective. Source: Cornwall Park, Auckland

One Tree Hill‘ featured in a song by the band U2. The song was written in memory of NZ roadie Greg Carroll who became very close friends with lead singer Bono. Carroll was killed in July 1986 in a motorcycle accident in Dublin.

There are lava caves under Maungakiekie, One Tree Hill.

Auckland’s Volcanic Caves :
In June 1907 the One Tree Hill Domain Board gave newspapermen an opportunity to visit the lava caves under Maungakiekie, One Tree Hill. Accompanied by the benefactor who gave the parkland to Auckland, Sir John Logan Campbell, officials and the reporters went first to the southern (Onehunga) side of Cornwall Park reserve near where today Sorrento is situated.

Lake Taupo

Walk 13: Lake Taupo, 27 Jan 2019

Lake Taupo is New Zealand’s largest lake. The whole basin is an old caldera. The last eruption around 180AD, believed to be the largest in recorded history, blew Taupo dust to Java. There are still active thermal areas, especially at Waireki in the northeast and Tokaanu in the southwest.

This walk is in sections: one from Taupo to Five Mile Bay, and another section from Wharewaka Point to Five Mile Bay, which I walked on New Year’s Day the year before.

The official walk begins in town where the lake empties into the Waikato river and goes for 7kms to Wharewaka Point.

Here are some of the Lake’s measurements:

Wharewaka Point

Wharewaka Point to 5 Mile Bay

I did this walk on 1st Jan 2018.

Taupo nui a Tia walk

This walk is from Wharewaka to the Yacht Club by the Waikato River. I did it with Meredith, Colleen and Lyn on Easter weekend 2021.

Walk: Taupo 36

Stone Alignments, Wharewaka

There were stone alignments at Waipoua Forest, Maunganui Bluff, Northland and Koru Pa, Taranaki. This appears to be another site. Many of the rocks are in an unnatural standing position. If these were boulders spewed-forth from a violently erupting volcano, then they would neither look so regularly shark’s-fin shaped nor would they sit so perfectly upright.

Fortunately these boulders haven’t been lost to the bulldozers, they are sitting in plain sight at the Lake Taupo Scenic lookout reserve.

Links

The power of Taupo

History:

Lake Taupo is named after the explorer Tia, a chief from the Arawa canoe. The full name of the lake is Te Taupō-nui-a-Tia. When the people of the Te Arawa landed at Maketū, Tia travelled up the Kaituna River to Rotorua. Tia continued west until he came to the Waikato River. He noted the murkiness of the water and reasoned that someone was ahead of him. This place was named Ātiamuri (Tia who follows behind). Determined to meet those responsible for the muddy water, Tia hurried after them. At a place near Wairākei he came to some river rapids whose tiered form fascinated him. Today they are called Aratiatia (the stairway of Tia). Journeying on to present-day Lake Taupō, he was disappointed to find a large tribe, *Ngāti Hotu, already living there.

Sourced from Te Ara.govt.nz, Ngāti Tūwharetoa.

*Ngato Hotu: see The First People.

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 informed us of “Talking poles,” a series of carved poles located throughout the shopping centre at Tokoroa (the next town north along SH1) 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