Adventure 222

Author, Erik Skilling, enjoying a mid-winter's hike and camp
SIDE NOTE:
This is the sort of trip you want to keep to yourself,
but Tarawera has justifiably been a “tourist magnet”
since late 1870 when the entrepreneurial chief Aporo
Te Wharekaniwha built the 25-bed Cascade Hotel and
charged international tourists Stg2 each to be taken to
view the world famous Pink and White Terraces.
Violence, both man-made and natural have taken a
big toll on the local inhabitants over the last few 100
years.
Many years ago a local chief Umukari was killed and
decapitated by the Apumoana iwi. His head was found
in a cave on the small peninsula facing the Landing,
an area now dotted with baches and moorings
about 20 minutes into the tramp. The cave itself was
submerged when lake-waters rose after the Tarawera
eruption.
Umukari’s son Wahiao and Tutanekai - of Tutanekai
and Hinemoa fame, led a war-party to Moura Pa
sited on the peninsula just across the water from the
campsite at Hot Water Beach. The attackers entered
the Pa via the “back-door”– attaching ropes to an
overhanging tree and scaling the cliffs. All of the
Apumoana iwi were either killed or taken prisoner.
In June 1886 Mt Tarawera exploded and the ensuing
eruption took the lives of 107 people and buried the
Pink and White Terraces. Twenty-nine of those who
perished were living at Te Rapa Bay. Many of the local
iwi were forced to leave the area with the associated
collapse of the tourist industry that had been providing
them with an estimated Stg6,000 income annually.
Today Tuhourangi have returned, and their
entrepreneurial flair revived. We certainly appreciated
the effort put in to keep the track maintained and the
bay and campsite so pristine.
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