Howarth Memorial Wetland, Te Aroha

Walk #144, 25th January 2025

This is a walk along the banks of the Waihou river in the delightful town of Te Aroha. The tree planting in the reserve is a bit chaotic with kahikatea, oaks, willows and other trees all scrambled in together but it’s a pleasant place. It was green and shady, all that is wanted on a hot summer’s day.

Don’t leave without going to the town domain.

Walk: Waikato 4

Te Aroha, Jan 2006

Te Aroha is an Edwardian spa town. The domain where the hot springs are was decked out in the fashion of the European Spas in the 1880’s, and it hasn’t changed. It is a unique place, the only complete Edwardian Domain in New Zealand, and the site of the Mokena Geyser, a geyser of hot soda water … the only one of its kind in the world.

The geyser comes up from a depth of 70 meters and plays every 40 minutes. It was named after the Maori chief, Mokena Te Hau, an early Christian convert who gifted the land to the town. His memorial Cairn is next to the No.8 Drinking Fountain, where you can drink the soda water for free.

The water is nice to drink, naturally carbonated without the sugar or preservatives. Coke’s not the real thing, THIS is the real thing. The pools are nice too.

The word ‘Spa’ is an acronym for Salus per Aquam or healing through waters.

In order for this unique fountain to be found at the Spa, it needed two things – a gift to the people from a chief, and for the people who discovered the healing power of the water to have enough faith in it to dig a bore 70 meters down to find the well.

The geyser plays every 30 minutes. These are photos from a visit in 2006. This is our third visit to the area.

The meaning of the Te Aroha mountain peaks

The mountain has two names, one for each of its two peaks, ‘Te Aroha-ki uta’, and ‘Te
Aroha-a tai’, respectively meaning ‘love for the land’ and ‘love for the sea’. The names
originated in Hawaiki, the memory of which is fostered by Tainui, Arawa, and Mataatua
waka which all incorporate Te Aroha as part of their respective traditions.

Chief Mokena Te Hau, benefactor and peacemaker was of the Ngāti Rāhiri Tumutumu tribe.

The original inhabitants of the Aroha lands are believed to be the Tino-o-Toi. Various
tribes subsequently settled the area. According to Ngāti Rāhiri Tumutumu tradition, Te
Aroha is a dwelling place of the ‘patupaiarehe’ or ‘fairy people’. The mountain is
important in many stories, karakia (prayers), and waiata (songs).

Source: NGĀTI RĀHIRI TUMUTUMU Deed of Settlement

Bowentown Heads, Bay of Plenty

Walk #143, 10th December 2024

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.”

Source: Western Bay of Plenty District Libraries

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.

Source: Tauranga Local History

Athenree

Athenree Homestead Reserve on the road out is worth a visit.

Related walk:

Orokawa Bay, Waihi Beach

Cape Reinga

Walk #129, 2nd May 2024

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.

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.

Walk: Northland 3

Links

Cape Reinga/Te Rerenga Wairua heritage

The Far North: the tail of the fish

The local iwi (tribe) are Ngati Kuri

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.

The Three Kings Islands

Abel Tasman’s ships close to the Three Kings 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 vine Tecomanthe 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.

Ngāti Kuri ancestral knowledge rescues endemic species from extinction

Lake Ngaroto, Waikato

Walk #115, 31 January 2024

Lake Ngaroro is a peat lake in the Waipa district of Waikato. It’s ten minutes from Pirongia or Te Awamutu.

The lake is surrounded by farmland. When European farmers drained the swamps for pasture they pulled rata, kahikatea and totara logs out of the ground. The logs were all found lying in the same direction and it was quite likely the trees were knocked over by the Taupo eruption of 233 AD.

The path around the lake is easy and well maintained with some interesting info boards.

I liked the fish ladder and the planting that’s been done around the lake to improve water quality. It took me an hour and twenty minutes to walk around the lake.

Walk: Waikato 25

History

Battle of Hingakaka

This battle was the largest ever fought in NZ with an estimated 16,000 warriors involved. It took place between 1790 and 1807, before muskets. The war between Maori tribes was caused by a dispute over the fish harvest.

Episode 39: Hingakaka – the biggest battle in NZ Ever!

Uneuku

Maori buried their taonga (treasures) in swamps to protect them from being pillaged. Uenuku is one such treasure, found in the lake area and now cared for at the Te Awamutu Museum.

The Maori maintain Uenuku was a rainbow god and it was carried into battle before being buried in the swamp surrounding Lake Ngaroro. They claim it’s the only one of it’s kind. However, two such pou (poles) were said to be on Mount Pirongia, the home of the Patupairehe. They would have long rotted out, this one was preserved by the swamp.

Is the artifact Maori or did it belong to earlier people?

Is Te Uenuku really ‘unique’?

Links

Interestingly, for those who say the Moriori never were in NZ, the Moriori also have a god called Ouenuku. This confirms for me that the Moriori were in NZ first, which is what I was told as a child. Source: Tangata Whenua

Te Uenuku (Pt2)

Uenuku transferred to Te Awamutu Museum

Pā of Lake Ngāroto

Ebook, THE OLD FRONTIER