This walk is near Lake Okataina in the Rotorua Lakes area. The track follows a crater rim and leads to views over two lakes, Lakes Rotongata and Rotoatua. The views are better away from the viewing area.
I give it 3 stars because the views in most part are blocked by trees.
I recommend the Te Auheke Track (Cascades Track) instead.
The NZ Motor Caravan site provides this helpful info:
Time: 40 min loop
Distance: 1.5 km
The track passes a sheer cliff face which is covered with moss and ferns. At night, thousands of glow worms can be seen. The picturesque Cascade Falls (around 10 m high) pour water over and around many rock protrusions and inspired the track’s name: Te Auheke means ‘tumbling water’.
Getting there: Start at the back of the field behind the Outdoor Education Centre.
This beautiful 35 m high waterfall is on the Te Anga Road in the Waitomo region. Also on the same scenic road, going toward Waitomo, is the Piripiri cave and the Mangapohe Natural Bridge.
This was an unusual walk, we made our way over a big sand dune to a hot water beach near Kawhia, which also goes by the name of ‘Te Puia,’ meaning ‘hot springs’.
The hot spots are directly out from the main track down the dune. As you can see this hot water beach is less crowded than the more popular and well-known beachat Hahei, Coromandel.
You have to go two hours either side of low tide. The hot water is found by digging into the sand with your toes. We found a warm spot and my husband Bert dug a hole for us to soak in with his father’s US army issue spade. As he dug I could smell the sulphur. The hole that I’d already claimed had water that was a bit hotter.
Unfortunately it started to rain, but we were already wet anyway and the wind wasn’t cold.
This old pa site at Aotea Harbour was right at the doorstep of the place where we stayed for two nights. The harbour in front of the pa was named after the Aotea canoe which is said to have arrived around 1300.
The Tainui canoe arrived about 50 years later and the people from that canoe settled at nearby Kawhia, just down the coast. The Tainui and Aotea tribes lived in harmony until the 1600s when battles started because the Kawhia people were expanding.
The two tribes united when their rohe (area) came under attack around 1800 from inland Tainui. The defeated people fled south to take refuge in pa still controlled by Te Rauparaha, trekking to Taranaki and then on to Horowhenua.
For a long time after their defeat this pa site was left empty, until the defeat of Waikato by Ngapuhi at Matakitahi in 1826 when survivors from that conflict settled here.
The book said it was an easy climb to the top – no it wasn’t. The long grass came half way up my body and it was impossible walking through it. Plus there was some dead gorse in the midst of the vegetation. I did not want to disappear into an old kumera pit so I called it a day and came back down.
The pa site is not a “wahi tapu,” a sacred locality like part of the foreshore – but when I gained the ridge I felt I shouldn’t be up there.
Mangaokewa means “the stones of Kewa.” This walk is about 3kms from the town of Te Kuiti. It follows the Mangaokewa River.
There’s a small waterfall about 20 minutes along the track. Beyond that is an old road going in the direction of Te Kuiti. The area has a ghost townish feel which I remarked about on the video. I later learned it was the original site of Te Kuiti before the town moved north.
Te Kooti was invited to Te Kūiti, the residence of the Māori King – but only if he came in peace. He responded defiantly that he was coming to ‘assume himself the supreme authority which he coming direct from God was entitled to’. Accompanied by Horonuku and Ngāti Tūwharetoa, and his core group of around 60 whakarau, Te Kooti arrived at Te Kūiti on 10 July 1869. Rewi Maniapoto greeted Te Kooti as a kinsman (they were related through Te Kooti’s father) and Te Kooti, for his part, appeared more conciliatory. He had come not to depose Tāwhiao but ‘to rouse up the Waikato to take up arms’. A feast had been prepared, but at this point Te Kooti declared that ‘he should consider himself the host (tangata whenua) and that the Waikato were his visitors’. His men loaded their weapons and fired over the heads of the bewildered Ngāti Maniapoto.
From 1873 to 1883 Te Kooti lived at Te Kūiti. Here he evolved the rituals of his church. In 1883 Te Kooti was formally pardoned, at Rewi Maniapoto’s insistence. Te Kooti left Te Kūiti and in April moved to Ōtewā, where he founded his religious community.
Queen Elizabeth park is on the Kapiiti Coast between Raumati Beach and Paekakariki. We parked at the Wellington Tramways Museum at MacKays crossing and took a historic tram to the start of the walk at Whareroa Beach. It was a different and fun way of starting the walk. The tram runs on the weekend.
The central car park at Whareroa Beach is the start point for two loop tracks, one north to Raumati Beach and the other south to Paekakariki. Both have seaward tracks that follow the dunes. We kept to the inland track which is more sheltered from the westerly wind.
I have some family links with the area from the 1800’s. History of the Howell family (my paternal Grandmother’s relatives)
From the 1850s, several Pakeha families came into the Whareroa/Paekakariki area to farm the land which included areas currently within the Queen Elizabeth Park. From 1860, John Telford established a sheep farm know as ‘Wharemako’ and this extended around and south of current-day Raumati and presumably included the northern part of the park
In August 1879, William Bentinck Howell leased much of this land off Telford for £100 per annum for 10 years. The 1,335-acre run carried 800 sheep. In 1884 Howell agreed to buy another 600 acres or so, on deferred payment, with the result that he then held an approximately 2,000 acre farm that extended all the way down to Whareroa Stream. Howell continued leasing and acquired a right of purchase of the whole farm by the late 1880s. He began draining the swamps in between the sandhills and establishing pasture.
Howell Road, Paraparaumu Beach
Named after the Howell family, early settlers. William Bentinck Howell (named after the ship he was born on the way to NZ) settled in Wharemaku, a homestead next to the Wharemauku stream in 1879. This house was demolished in about 1949. The site is now 41 Alexander Road. Source: Kapiti Historical Society – Street names and early dwellings Project
This seaside reserve, half an hour from Auckland includes a kilometre-long sandy beach and a coastal marine reserve. Green hillsides provide a buffer from the neighbouring suburbs and pohutukawas flank the beach along the length of the bay.
The parkland continues north of the beach for about two kilometres before turning inland along the Okura river.
Vaughan homestead, the original farm homestead has been restored and is open for visitors.
Jubilee Park, known locally as Claudelands Bush, is a tiny bush remnant of what was a 200-hectare forest, dominated by Kahikatea, Rimu and Matai. Development has seen the forest shrink over the years to its current size, with some of the remaining trees part of the original forest.
The park is also home to the endangered long tailed bat, the pekapeka, one of New Zealand’s only mammals.
Walk: Hamilton 17
Links
Long tailed bats: Andrew Styche, from the Department of Conservation (DOC), thinks bats have mostly survived in Hamilton thanks to tiny islands of remnant bush within the city limits.
“There’s not much original vegetation left around here so it is amazing they’ve survived,” Andrew says.
From the signboard, the land was originally a renowned native bird forest hunting area. The first inhabitants of the area were the Mokohape, a sub-tribe of an extensive tribal group known as Nga Iwi (the people). They were replaced by Tainui people from Mokau and Kawhia.
In the 1800s battles were fought against Te Rauparaha from the west, Ngapuhe from the north and then the British in the Waikato land wars of the 1860s.
With European settlement, Francis Claude subdivided the land in 1870 and the suburb became known as Claudelands.
TheMokohape
Mokohape refers to a figure depicted on carved pou (posts) outside a casino in Hamilton, New Zealand, which represents a tribe of the Nga Iwi people who once lived on the Waikato River before being conquered by Ngaati Wairere. The pou feature a carved face and a lizard, symbolizing the Mokohape people’s struggle for survival and eventual displacement, an event captured by the proverb, “People may disappear but the land remains.” Source: Google AI
While it’s winter time I’m posting some walks we did years ago. The walks on this page were at Russell / Kororareka in the Bay of Islands. We’ve been to Russell twice, the first time was in early spring of 2011 when we took the ferry across from Paihia. The second visit was in the late winter of 2015, and this time I walked from Okiato near the car ferry at Opua. Despite the lawlessness of the area, for a short time in 1845 Okiato was the site of NZ’s first capital.
Russell began life as Kororareka, and it was a wild town full of whalers, grog shops, brothels and a Maori Pa belonging to Ngapuhi chief Hone Heke.
Tensions grew between the Maori and the British over the imposition of duties and tarrifs. Inspired by talk of revolution by the Americans, in 1844 Hone hacked down a flag pole he’d formerly given the British. When it was replaced in 1845 he cut it down again and actually flew the US flag from his waka (canoe).
To provide further context to the issue, according to the 19th century Pakeha Maori F.E. Maning (see links below) the Maoris associated the British flag with the lack of trade and high-prices. When the duties and tarrifs came off after the first flagpole was chopped down, it resulted in goods becoming affordable again. In the Maori mind, stopping the British flag from flying solved the problem.
The fourth time the flagpole was erected in 1845, the lower portion was clad in iron, but that did not stop Hone from cutting it down yet again – and to follow it up he sacked the town, burning down many buildings including the Duke of Marlborough Hotel.
The Duke of Marlborough Hotel was quickly rebuilt after being burned down and the establishment has been running ever since. We had lunch in the historic dining room overlooking the waterfront during our week’s stay at Okiato in 2015.
Christ Church is the oldest surviving church in NZ. It actually has bullet holes from the Battle of Kororareka. Hone Heke told his warriors to leave the church standing but its old timbers still bear the scars from the battle. It has a historic graveyard that we walked through. Among the graves in the churchyard are those of Tamati Waka Nene (a Ngapuhi chief largely responsible for the Maori’s acceptance of the Treaty of Waitangi and who fought for the settlers against Hone Heke), members of the Clendon family (James R Clendon was the first honorary United States Consul), and the men from the HMS Hazard who fell in the battle.
We went to a church service on the Sunday we were there in the winter of 2015. That was special. There was no minister, the parishioners kept the church running by themselves. After qualifiying for a degree in theology from an institution in Melbourne they all took turns at preaching. The hymns were played by MP3 through a sound system. We were impressed at their commitment and quiet ‘can do’ attitude. I met a great-granddaughter of Hone Heke at that church, she was a very elegant and well spoken woman.
On our first trip to Russell in 2011 we visited Flagstaff Hill. We strolled along the historic waterfront and then climbed the path through regenerating bush to the hill overlooking the town. A new flagstaff was erected in 1857 as an act of reconciliation by those involved in cutting down the old flagpole and it still stands today.
Back then on our first visit we were more interested in the panoramic views of Russell, Paihia, Waitangi and the islands of the Bay. Our interest in NZ history came from later walks.
Walk 4th August 2015
This was the walk from Okiato to Russell / Kororareka I did in 2015. The exercise was ruined after eating and drinking decadent chocolate at the Newport Chocolate shop in Russell. The chocolate was worth every calorie!
Orongo Bay on the walk impressed me the most, with its mangrove boardwalk and Mt Tikitikioure, a small mount rising 180m above the bay. The hill once belonged to a local chief named Ure and it meant ‘Ure’s top-knot. The Maori people there used a blue pigment found deep in the mountain for painting their faces. It turned out be be manganese which was mined until 1887.
Old New Zealand: A Tale of the Good Old Times by Frederick Edward Maning. This book written by Maning, a Pakeha Maori, gives an insight into the time surrounding the war against Hone Heke in 1845. After the battle the maori were plundering the town “because they believed the fight was over, and the people were only quietly plundering the town which had been left for them, and which they had given fair payment for.”
That custom was called ‘muru,’ to plunder, confiscate, take ritual compensation – an effective form of social control, restorative justice and redistribution of wealth among relatives. The process involved taking all the offending party’s goods. The party that had the muru performed on them did not respond by seeking utu.
“At last, all the town people and soldiers went on board the ships, and then the ship of war fired at the Maori people who were plundering in the town. The noise of the firing of the ship guns was very great, and some of Kawiti’s people were near being hit by the lumps of iron. This was not right, for the fight was over … so in revenge they burnt Kororareka, and there was nothing left but ashes ; and this was the beginning of the war.”
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