Bella Vista from Mapoutahi Pa (Otago) Traditional Cache

A short beach walk to historic Mapoutahi Pa.

This cache can be accessed from Blueskin Bay at the bottom of Doctors Point Road. Please check the tides before you do this cache and allow yourself plenty of time if you plan to walk to the end of the Purakaunui Beach as the high tide doesn’t allow to get back to parking area at Doctors Point Road. To find the lowest tide use the NIWA Tide Forecaster You can also come from Purakanui School Road and turn left onto Osbourne Road but this can be wet when there has been lots of rain and also very soft sand and preferably a 4WD as it very sandy with very limited parking. See also the Mapoutahi bolted crags on your left near the parking area before entering the beach if your a keen climber. Dogs are allowed but on a leash. Please be aware there may be sea-life along the coastline. Enjoy the views from Mapoutahi Pa and ensure to keep young children close to you as there are steep cliffs around the Pa. Large enough for trackables. Please re-hide well.

Others know this as Goat Island (no doubt because its outline bears some resemblance to the head of a goat) but it’s better known to the Maori as the Mapoutahi Pa and in the 18th century it stood as a fortified pa. Known as a tragic massacre, on the coast about fifteen miles north of Dunedin. The story becoming more and more extinct … however it is possible to trace the history of Mapoutahi Pa from the tradition handed down from generation to generation. There is nothing to suggest the tragedy, of which it was once the scene, yet these green slopes once ran red with blood and the yells of the victors and the vanquished could have been heard above the noise of the surf that laves its rocky base.

SOUTHERN MAORI INTER-TRIBAL — WAR BEFORE THE COMING OF THE PAKEHA

Some six or seven generations ago a chief named Taoka or Taonga lived with his people near Timaru. As was customary at times he set out with a small party to visit his cousin, Te Wera, of Ngatimamoe, who had a large pa at Karitane Peninsula, or Huriawa. After enjoying Te Wera's hospitality for three days Taoka set out with his host, who it might be mentioned was a man of very fiery temper (he had killed his own wife—a princess of the Kaitahu) to visit another relative, Kapo, to Mapoutahi Pa, at Purakaunui.

While staying here these two—Te Wera and Taoka—as relatives often do, had a heated argument which developed into an open quarrel, resulting unfortunately in Te Wera killing Taoka's son. Taoka vowing vengeance returned to Timaru, gathered all his fighting men about him and laid siege to Karitane Pa. For twelve long months he waited, but only once did any of his men gain entrance—several climbed up a blow-hole into the pa and stole Te Wera's god-stick. Next day Te Wera saw them doing a haka and, noticing the loss of his god-stick, induced his tohunga to chant for its return, whereupon it came flying back through the air to him.

Unable to attack the Karitane Pa, whose massive entrenchments remain to-day, Taoka went home but came back again the following winter and this time intending to attack the Mapoutahi Pa whose chief, Pakihaukea, was a close ally of Te Wera.

After besieging the pa for ten days, since both the invaders and defenders were wary, Taoka, thirsting for the blood of his foeman and seeing a snow storm approaching, decided that the hour for revenge had come. Snow fell for many hours. That night, with the snow eighteen inches deep and all the hillside quiet he sent out a scout to ascertain if the palisade were defended. The scout returned to say that it was fully guarded. Not satisfied, Taoka himself crept silently to the palisade and discovered that the supposed guards were merely dummies hanging from the palisade and moving occasionally as the wind caught them. The besieged natives in the pa had committed the same human error which many besieged peoples in European and ancient history had done. They had thought themselves secure within their walls and had relaxed guard.

Taoka and his men silently scaled the palisade and cautiously arranged themselves among the whares. Suddenly the blood-curdling war-cry of the invaders roused the sleeping natives and, dazed by sleep, as they stumbled from their whares, they fell victims to the weapons of the enemy. Altogether, 250 were mercilessly slaughtered, and only a few escaped by rushing to the cliff edge and throwing themselves 60 feet or 70 feet into the sea.

As day dawned the rising sun revealed a ghastly sight. The dusky bodies of the victims had been piled in a huge heap and covered in places with a mantle of snow they resembled a huge pile of wood. So they named the place Purakaunui, meaning “a large pile of wood.” That was about the year 1750 and to-day, nearly 250 years later, little evidence remains of that terrible massacre save the name of the district and the line of the trenches beneath the palisade in which human bones have been found.

Mapoutahi Pa is now a scenic and historic reserve under the administration of the Otago University Museum, where there is a model of the “island” and the pa.

Why is Blueskin named Blueskin...Waitete (the latter erroneously spelt Waitati). Waitete means "bubbling water" Blueskin was the name of Waitete in the early days. The early settlers named it such after a well-tattooed Maori called Te Hikututu, whose nickname was Blueskin

Exerts from

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