This is the rock I saw on my last climb in the area at Tokatoka Peak. It’s difficult to get to the top as you have to pull yourself up the rocks with a chain. Climbing boots are needed which we didn’t have. Despite that, we made it to the main ridge.
— ◊♦◊♦◊♦ —
On the 26th September 2020, we returned with proper boots …
— ◊♦◊♦◊♦ —
Walk: Northland 30
Related post: Tokatoka Peak
A walk along Mangiwhai Heads at the beginning of March before NZ was unnecessarily shut down from the Covid-19 scare. This beach is about an hour’s drive north of us.
From Mangawhai Beach, we climbed 167 metres up to the ridge and followed the track above the bush covered cliffs. The coastline to the south is Te Arai and Cape Rodney.
North of the heads is Waipu and Bream Bay. The offshore islands are the Hen and Chicken Islands.
Walk: Northland 32
Land ownership: The Mangawhai Purchases of 1854 and 1874 were again made by an agreement between Ngati-Whatua and the Crown. The southern boundary of the 50,000-acre purchase was along the “old tribal line” to Te Arai Point, which is now also the Arai Parish line. So it was outside the Mahurangi line. The Thames-Hauraki tribes recognised the tribal line as the limits of their interests and made no issue on that point. Neither did the Ngapuhi-related Ngati-Wai.
From THE ROCK AND THE SKY The Story of Rodney County by H. Mabbett.
Links:
Bennetts at Mangiwhai is a nice place to go for food and chocolate, and they support the Fairy tern trust.
Related posts:
Te Arai Regional Park – south of Mangiwhai Heads
I don’t know how many times I’ve driven through this village between Taupo and Turangi and gone past a marina I never knew existed!
Walk: Taupo-Central North Island 38
I did this walk on my own. Tokatoka Peak is a volcanic plug, 354 metres high. It’s a short but steep climb to the top. The last bit is particularly steep. There’s not a lot of room up there and I didn’t have the peak to myself. At the top there’s a great view of the Wairoa River and west, the country looking out to Dargaville. Not far off to the north-east, there’s Maugaraho Rock.
Walk: Northland 29
Links
Kaipara: Where traditions run deep
Walk 20, 28 Oct 2019
We walked uphill through grassland to a pa site at the summit of the Papamoa Hills Regional Park, a climb of 224 metres. There are sweeping views of the hills and coast from Te Puke and Papamoa to Mount Maunganui.
We saw a very tame quail sitting on a fence post, he was obviously used to walkers.
“Papamoa Hills Cultural Heritage Regional Park (Te Rae o Papamoa) includes a number of important pre-European archaeological features. The sites have significance to three iwi (Maori tribal groups) – Ngaiterangi, Ngati Pukenga (of Mataatua) and Waitaha A Hei (of Te Arawa). There are at least seven pa sites (forts) in the park, and others can be seen in the surrounding landscape.” Source: 100% Pure NZ
Links
This bowl was found 1.5m underground in Tauranga in the 1890’s on a slope of Maungatawa. Yes, 1.5m underground in fern country. Discovered when someone was digging a post hole. Why that far down? It wasn’t buried under a tree like Maori often did with something they feared or didn’t know… ie the Korotangi. Many odd and non-Maori items have been found buried way down below any 800-100 year old Maori occupation layer.
Source: Tangata Whenua – Raivavae
Walk 1: Te Arai Regional Park, 18 March 2018
Te Arai Beach, looking south
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
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 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).
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?
History
Links:
Wellsford’s most beautiful beach
The Fairy tern: Near end of a species
Dam goes down, bridge to go up
The Journal of the Polynesian Society
Cornwall Park Rongo Stone:
NZShortWalks 