The Tuia Mātauranga GeoTour is about having fun discovering the history of Aotearoa New Zealand by finding sites of significance in local communities from early Pacific voyaging and migration, European settlement to present day. The interaction between people, and people and the land have provided a rich history that the GeoTour invites you to explore.
To be able to complete this Geotour and receive your special geocoin, remember to take a note of the codeword on the log book of the cache. This will need to be recorded in your passport which can be downloaded from here. If the passport is unavailable for any reason just keep a note of the codeword and try again later.
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In the Logbook is a keyword, which you will need to complete the Geotour.
Ngati Toa Domain – then and now.
Today, this area is a tranquil spot, a park for the Kids to play sport on a weekend, or a place to park up and have a picnic whilst watching the waves. But there’s much more to the history of this area!
Paremata Point is where the Porirua and Pauatahanui inlets meet, and has been almost continuously occupied for over 500 years. Archaeological remains have been found dating back to approx. 1450 CE.
The first visitors made seasonal camps, in an area surrounded by forests. They gathered birds such as Huia, Kaka, Takahe, New Zealand Hawk, Tui and up to seven different species of moa. They fished for snapper, trevally, cod, conger eels, kahawai and stingrays, plus gathered shellfish from the sea and estuaries.
Later, people from Ngai Tara, Ngait Rangi and Ngati Ira tribes lived here prior to the Ngati Toa migration south in the 1820’s. Some time later the senior tohunga Nohorua settled here, where he built a pa at the water’s edge.
In the mid 1830’s a shore whaling station was established here by Joseph Thoms, who with his father-in law Nohorua signed the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. A ferry operated between here and Whitieria peninsula, until the Paikakariki Hill road was built in the 1840’s .
In April 1846, 220 British soldiers were sent to Porirua, and landed here to establish a military base. Trenches and a stockade were built, followed by a two storey brick and stone barracks completed in 1847. However the bricks and mortar used were of poor quality, and not fireproof. The earthquake of 1848 damaged the building so the troops were evacuated and the barracks used as a storehouse, and later as farm buildings by James and Louisa Walker, who raised sheep here. James renamed the area Dolly Varden, after his rowing skiff. He also had goalposts erected on open space by his house as he was patron of the local football club .
Soldiers returned to the area during World War 2, as there was a New Zealand Army camp here.
In 1955, the nearby Dolly Varden railway station was renamed Mana, which became the name of the suburb. The area alongside the Barracks is the Ngati Toa Domain, and now has a marina, sports fields and Sea Scouts and other club rooms.
The cache.
I've had to relocate this, and change it a bit, due to repeated mugglings at it's previous location.
The cache is now a black camoed Berocca tube, hidden at the base of a very small Taupata bush, and coverd by a stone. As this area is very busy (especially on summer evenings and weekends when there are sports events on), please use extreme caution when searching for and replacing this cache.
Reference:
Porirua Museum History Series: No 7 Paremata Point. Compiled by Pat Stoddart, 1993.