Entering Taranaki

As I left Whanganui recently, driving northwest to New Plymouth on the Surf Highway, I came upon this unusually picket-fenced marae down a side road. It's Waiokura Marae, located on Winks Road, just south of the small town of Manaia, which was settled in the 1880s and named after Chief Manaia Hukunui. The whare here - Paraukau - was built in his honour. It's home to the people of Ngati Tu, a hapu of Nga Ruahine. All was quiet the morning I arrived - but for the early chattering and tinkering at the nearby Kohaga Reo - a peaceful scene, with the metal road snaking away into the rolling green and Mt Taranaki looming protectively on the horizon.

It was a different story a short distance away on the main highway opposite the Manaia Golf Course, where these signs indicate Ngati Tu dissatisfaction over their unresolved land claims.
www.ngaruahine.iwi.nz

Of Washing and Whare

I’d been driving for quite some time when I got to Ruapeka Marae, near Fitzgerald Glade on State Highway 5 on the way to Rotorua, so I was more than happy to pull up on the wide road berm and sit awhile. When I lived in the North Island, I must have driven past this particular marae a hundred times and never really noticed it. This time was different. I pushed my seat back, opened the windows and just sat listening to the birds, wondering what went on here on an average day.

There was no one about and I have since discovered it is one of the many Ngati Raukawa marae – of the hapu Ngati Tukorehe. Their wharenui is named Rangimarie and their whare kai is Te Aroha. It’s a pretty spot, with the bright yellow wharenui sitting to one side of a large paddock against the leafy native bush backdrop of Tukorehe Reserve. Across the fields there was a small cluster of houses – one with this fabulous billowing clothes line. (I’m not sure why, but I find clothes lines full of washing a very appealing photographic subject). After I had spent a little time here, I drove on through Fitzgerald Glade and, seeing a sign for Tapapa Marae, I swung immediately left off the highway and happily drove down a winding country road. I carried on for miles but I must have driven right past it because I ended up back out on the highway having completed a great big loop….and had to drive all the way back past Ruapeka Marae a second time. It was a fruitless search at one level, but on my two month trip around New Zealand in April-May, I made many detours like that – and I loved every second of it. http://ruapekamarae.wainet.org