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.
---
Honiana Te Puni-Kokopu
Chief TePuni (sometimes known as Epuni) was a Te Ati Awa chief of high lineage. He lived at Pukeariki pa in Taranaki but by 1832 his people had settled in Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington Harbour) and Te Puni had a fully established pa on Pito-one beach (Petone). He was one of the signatories of the Treaty of Waitangi and the deed of purchase of the land about Wellington
On the 22nd January 1840 he welcomed the first New Zealand Company settlers to the beach, and became a firm friend of the new arrivals. His people built houses for the settlers and supplied food in exchange for European clothing and other goods. Later, he provided military advice and assistance. He vigorously defended the Europeans when Boulcott's farm was attacked in 1846, after which he was issued with 100 muskets and a silver cup in recognition of his friendly services by the Chairman of Directors of the NZ Company. . He built a stockade between Fort Richmond (Lower Hutt) and Boulcott’s Farm, and strengthened his own pa at Petone.
In 1850 he returned to his ancestral lands in Taranaki where he experienced racial tensions and physical collisions between Europeans and Maori. Yet although grieved and angered by the European attitude and actions, he left the following words for his people "...be kind to my European brothers and sisters, be patient, be tolerant...".
Chief Te Puni was buried in the family cemetery, the urupa at Petone, after a State funeral with full military honours - it was noted at the time "as great a one as the city (Wellington) could give". Government offices, banks and commercial houses were closed for the day, and "everybody of any consequence, who could possibly make the trip, went out to Petone by sea or road". A memorial made of Oamaru stone was erected in 1872 in Te Puni Street.
The Lower Hutt suburb of Epuni is named after him. Petone also has Te Puni Street and Atiawa Street.
The cache - first stage
This memorial stands in the Te Puni Street urupā – burial ground. However the inscription on the memorial is clear, and can be read without needing to enter the urupā.
You need to find:
- a date (DDMMYYYY)
- the name of the person commemorated (P, 3 words)
- the name of the tribe of which he was chief (Q)
- who erected the memorial (R, 3 words)
All this information is on the memorial in both Te Reo Māori and English. Use the English version.
The cache, which is a small cliptop container, can be found a few hundred metres away at
S 41°13.ABC E 174°52.DEF
where
A = DD
B = # letters in Q
C = # of letters in first word of R
D = Y1 (first digit of year) + Y4 (fourth digit of year)
E= # letters in P - Y2 (second digit of year)
F = # letters in third word of P
CHECKSUM(A:F) = 26
The final is a short walk away - please note parking in the area is at a premium during business hours and there are very busy roads in the vicinity.
Just a quick note on terrain - the first stage and the general area of the final are wheelchair accessible, but the cache itself is not.
And finally, credit must be given to troodles who had a long archived cache which I used as the basis for this one.