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

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.