The Kahuterawa Valley is located near Palmerston North in the foot of the Tararua Ranges.
We walked the Sledge track in the Kahuterawa Valley with our friend who knows the area. He was very keen to go as far as we could.
Having now walked the track, if you’ve only got a couple of hours I recommend only going as far as the Arapuke Swing Bridge.
From the swing bridge it’s all uphill on a ridge with no views. That part of the track is called “the Elevation.” There are no helpful signs on this section, just a hand-painted sign in red saying “2.8.kms to B.B.”
We had no idea what that stood for, it could have been “Black Bridge,” but that was back the way we came! Further up we came to a fork, which could have been the Toe Toe Junction, leading to some platinum ore mines from the late 1800s and early 1900s. With no signage we didn’t know where or how far it was. We carried on uphill for another 15 minutes and met some people coming back from the platinum mines – which we didn’t have the time budget for, so we went back the way we came.
The track is semi-maintained. I give it three stars because of the lack of signage and bush bashing.
There are four short walks around the North Egmont Visitor Centre.
The Nature Walk led on to the Ngatoro Loop Walk, a walk through sub-montane forest called “the Goblin Forest.” The ferns and mosses flourish because of the high rainfall.
Just behind the Visitor Centre is a historic camphouse, which was originally a military barracks during the land wars in the 1860s. It was moved to the site in the 1880s.
After lunch we did the Veronica Loop Track.
Before going uphill we passed the Ambury memorial, a memorial to climber Arthur Ambury who gave his life in 1918 in a heroic attempt to save his climbing partner.
The Veronica Loop track is a well-formed track. It goes up the mountain for half an hour and then there’s a junction for Holly Hut. The return walk via the loop track is harder.
Holly Hut Lookout
At the junction of the Holly Hut track, there’s a lookout ten minutes further up the mountain. We chose not to do it because of the lack of visibility.
There were no birds to be heard on either track, the forests were silent.
This Bay of Plenty walk has two ancient pa sites on either side of Anzac Bay. The upper car park is built on a pa site named ‘Te Kura a Maia’ where you can still see the terraces, ditches and an embankment on the landward side. The features of ‘Te Hoa,’ the pa site on the opposite hill are hidden by native bush.
The Bowentown Heads are known to Maori as Otawhiwhi, ‘the entwining’ and relates to a grisly incident where the intestines of a defeated chief were wrapped around a rock on the beach.
The view from pa site at the upper car park is good, you can see the Kaimai ranges, Tauranga estuary, Matakana Island and Mayor Island. An even better view can be had from walking up the other side of the ancient Te Kura a Maia pa site to the trig station where you can look down on Bowentown and Waihi Beach.
Walk: Bay of Plenty 2
Ongare Point artifacts
These two artifacts at Auckland Museum were found across the Tauranga estuary at Ongare Point. They show a definite Polynesian influence. This is the only area where I’ve seen Polynesian type artifacts.
History
Below, from the Western Bay of Plenty District Libraries, “This beautiful aerial photograph of the Bowentown Heads is our Turnback Tuesday feature this week. You can clearly see the terraces of Te Kura a Maia Pa. Te Kura a Maia translates as Training Ground for Young Warriors. The Pa was the scene of many battles as it had such a desirable location, so the name is very apt. The original Tangata Whenua of the region were Ngamarama, and it is they who are thought to have built this Pa.”
The earliest people known to have lived in the Tauranga area are the Purukupenga, whose name alone survives, and the Ngamarama, who inhabited all the land from the Waimapu Stream to the Kaimai ranges.
So numerous were these people that when the Tainui canoe passed through the Tauranga harbour, she made only a brief stay, leaving as evidence of the visit only “nga pehi o Tainui”, the ballast of Tainui, now known as Ratahi Rock.
Kai Iwi Lakes are three freshwater dune lakes, Lake Taharoa, Lake Kaiiwi, and Lake Waikare. The walk is around Lake Taharoa, the largest lake, where water the colour of sapphire ringed with aquamarine laps at the beaches of fine white sand. It’s a popular place to camp. The jewel in the setting is the lake, while the surrounding land is a bit ho-hum. It was a lovely spot fringed with big trees, but the trees were removed for some reason. It now looks a bit barren.
We got there in late afternoon and it started raining so the lake isn’t shown at it’s best. We got half way around Lake Taharoa when we decided to call it a day and go to the Kaihu Tavern.
Here’s a photo taken on an earlier visit in early spring, 2020 which shows the amazing colour of the lake.
Lake Taharoa, the largest of Kai Iwi Lakes
Walk: Northland 28
Kai Iwi Lakes Coastal Track
I recommend this walk across paddocks to Ripiro Beach, which we did in September 2020. It was more interesting although it’s across farmland so you would have to watch for bulls, cows, bogs and electric fences. We came out at a little waterfall on the beach.
Ripiro Beach
Ripiro Beach is at 107 km (66 miles) long it is the longest driveable beach in New Zealand, longer than the more famous, but erroneously named Ninety Mile Beach further north.
It is called ‘the shipwreck highway.’ The difficulty early mariners had navigating the coastline and finding entrance to the Kaipara Harbour to the south are evident to any visitor; there are no landmarks, and there were no lighthouses until the one at Pouto was built. Studies of a confirmed 113 shipwrecks and other suspected wrecks have brought social information to light with potential impacts on the known history of New Zealand. Some are found in shallow water, some are buried in dunes which are now inland in an area known as ‘Valley of the wrecks’ and “The graveyard”. Vague stories of ships full of white men wrecked and then eaten on this coast before and after the time of Abel Tasman may yet be confirmed. Source: Places NZ, Ripiro Beach – Shipwreck Highway
The walk incorporates two coasts and a meeting of the oceans. It’s in the westernmost part of the North Island and northernmost part of New Zealand.
Cape Reinga is a very spiritual place for Maori who believe it’s the place where spirits depart for Reinga, the underworld. The legendary early Polynesian explorer Kupe named the cape “Te Rerenga Wairua” as the point from which his descendants would travel in spirit form back to Hawaiiki-A-Nui.
Here the two oceans meet and they can be different colours. When we last visited in 2011 the Tasman was a lighter green and the Pacific a sapphire blue. It depends how quiet the sea is.
The coast on either side of the Aupouri peninsula is spectacular and wild. An ancient and very tapu pohutukawa tree clings to the rugged point beyond the lighthouse.
Offshore are the Three Kings Islands which can be seen on the horizon depending on how clear it is. The islands were named by Abel Tasman who also named Cape Maria van Diemen.
Cape Maria van Diemen
Walk: Northland 1
Te Paki Sand Hills
This video is from a holiday in 2011. My old Sanyo digital camera did tragic video back then, hence our return to the area for a better video of the walk at Cape Reinga.
No visit to Cape Reinga is complete without a visit to the sand dunes. These massive dunes stretch from the Te Paki stream to Te Werahi Beach, in some places they reach as high as 150 metres.
Bring a board for tobogganing and jandals to wear back to your vehicle. It’s lots of fun but you will get sand everywhere.
Ngāti Kuri are descended from the original inhabitants, the founding peoples of the northernmost peninsula of Aotearoa, in Te Hiku o Te Ika. These peoples, known also as Te Iwi o Te Ngaki, were already occupying Te Hiku o Te Ika before the arrival of the many migratory waka from Polynesia. Their ancestor was Ruatamore.
Ngāti Kuri also trace their whakapapa to the Kurahaupo waka which first made landfall in Ngāti Kuri’s rohe at Rangitahua, the Kermadec Islands.
Tasman’s ships anchored off the islands on 5 January 1643, the eve of Epiphany or Three Kings Day, which commemorates the visit of the three wise men to the infant Jesus, 12 days after Christmas. Source: Te Ara
Isaac Gilsemans, who sailed with Abel Tasman, drew this picture of the Three Kings Islands. The human figures in the background apparently gave rise to a belief amongst Europeans that Māori were giants.
Tasman also noted that “Upon the highest mountain of the island they saw 35 persons, who were very tall, and had staves or clubs . . . When they walked they took very large strides.”
While we’ll never know who these tall people were, here’s a photo I took from my research at Auckland Museum in 2021. This ancient carving was found in 1946, hidden in a cave on Great Island.
The Three Kings vineTecomanthe speciosa may once have been common on the Three Kings. By the time of its discovery, goats that had been introduced to the islands had reduced the entire population to a single specimen on Great Island, making it one of the world’s most endangered plants. The remaining specimen grew on a cliff that was too steep for the goats to reach. The original specimen still grows in the wild, and has developed more vines through the natural process of layering in the years since its discovery. The vine has been propagated and is now growing in NZ gardens.
And there was a lone Kaikōmako Manawa Tāwhi tree found on Manawa Tāwhi / Three Kings Islands north of Cape Reinga in 1945, but it took more than 40 years for scientists to successfully increase the rare tree’s numbers.
“We picked up the legacy of our grandparents to actually breed them and we have a programme where we have got 140 of those now and we are about a month away from delivering those back to the island,” Waitai said.
The project has also helped restore Bartlett’s rata, a rare shrub located at Cape Reinga.
This historic pa site is located at Opunake. The walk begins at Opunake Cemetery.
Te Namu pa is the site of a battle between Taranaki and Waikato. After the defeat and scattering of the Taranaki tribe at Maru in 1826, a large number of them migrated to Kapiti. But still there were a few left—not more than one hundred and fifty fighting men—and these, on the news of the approach of Waikato, gathered into their fortified pa of Te Namu, and stored it with a plentiful supply of provisions and water. There they held off a force of 800 Waikato.
The principal chief of Taranaki, who was appointed to conduct the operations in defence of the pa, was Wi Kingi Mata-katea. There was only one musket in the pa, and that belonged to him. His aim never failed; a man fell each time he discharged his gun—even if half a mile off —so long as he could see his man, he shot him.
Mata means eye so Mata-katea’s name probably translates as having a keen or accurate eye.
Although the site has a rich history we felt there was more to learn.
Walk: Taranaki 12
Petroglyphs
The history of the pa as known to the writer (Griffin) including finding a partly buried stone on which there was a petroglyph. Who knows where that’s gone. There were petroglyphs along the Taranaki coast. The rock was probably marked by the Waitaha or Te Kahui Maunga people.
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