TALES OF THE TAUPO COUNTRY

Taupo Times, Volume I, Issue 12, 2 April 1952, Page 5

TALES OF THE TAUPO COUNTRY

(By

R.H.

W.)

Some of the place names of the Taupo Ccimtry are memorials of the coming of the pakeha to this once remote heart of Te Ika a Maui, just as others record the ancient days of Maori exploration. The village of Hiruhararama once stood on the high ground in Acacia Bay, where now is a grove of acacia trees, and was a mission station under the care of the Rev. Mr Spencer. The name is not an original Maori name, but merely the Maori form of the word "Jerusalem," and with the passage of time and the disappearance of the village the name has become transferred in its English form to the present Jerusalem Bay. The acacia trees which originated the name of Acacia Bay were first planted there somewhere about the middle of last century, and came from plants which were brought from Auckland. The acacia was brought by niissionary visitors from Australia and was common in most old mission arbas and was valued for use as posts. Being told of its value for this purpose, a man of Nukuhau, walked to Auckland and brought back the first pjiants in a pikau on his back. His name was Rupeke Te Popoki, and he is remembered to this day as the man who first carried the mai! between Auckland and Taupo, his reputation being of a man "who walked everywhere, all over the country." Mention of Jerusalem recalls the name of another great walker, the

greatest of early Governors, Sir George Grey, the first Governor to visit Taupo. He walked to Taupo from Rotorua and reached the Lake at Waipahihi, where the warm stream enters the lake, at 2.30 p.m. on New Year^s Day, 1850. It is of interest to recall that in his party was Mr T. H. Potts, well known in New Zealand as a naturalist, author of the book "Out in the Open," one of the classics of New Zealand literature, so much sought after by collectors. Mr G. G. Potts, of Taupo, is a grandson of this early visitor to Taupo. The day following their arrival the Governor and his party were taken to Hiruharamea and entertained to a dinner of roasi pork cooked in ancient style. Another place name recalling the early pakeha visitors is that of Hamaria, the locality often known today as Hallett's Bay, on the eastern shore of the lake. This name recalls the early mission visitors, being the

Maori form of the Biblical placename Samaria. It is, unfortunately, spelt wrongly as "Hamuria" on the A.A. road sign. Bishop Selwyn walked to Taupo in 1843, visiting all the Maori villages on the the east and south of the lake, and on Suunday, November 5tli, he held services of baptism, confirmation, and Iioly Communion under a grove of karaka trees at Hamaria. Anothern name of the same period and still in use today is that of the Maori settlement of Korohe on the Waimarino River, south of Tauranga-Taupo. This village was until recently on the main Taupo-Tokaanu road, and was situ^ted where the road forded the Waimarino, upstream from the concrete bridge on the present road. "Korohe" is the Maori form of the. Biblical place-name Corinth. Another similar name, which was bestowed by the Rev. Mr Spencer, to a spot at Motutere, was that of Babylon, but this has not survived. The modern name of Mission Bay, the settlement between Motutere and Tauranga-Taupo, does not go back to the same period, being merely a name given in recent years. The Maori name of this locality is Waitetoko. Reference to these early pakeha visitors tc- Taupo recalls that the first white man definitely known to visit the Taupo Country appears to have been the Rev. Thomas Chapman, who walked from his mission station at

Rotorua and visited the southern eud of the lake in February, 1839. Another early visitor was John Carne Bidwill, who walked from Tau-* ranga, Bay of Plenty, via Rotorua, and was the first pakeha to elimb Ngauruhoe, which he did, alone, early in March, 1839. Bidwill's book "Rambles in New Zealand," published in London in 1841, bas long been keenly sought by all collectors of New Zealand classics and a new edition has recently been published in Wellington.