WELCOME TO THE Tuia Mātauranga GeoTour
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.
You've located another stop in this set of geocaches that are part of the GeoTour.
Find them all and earn your prize!
Taramakau, a Treasured River
The Taramakau River has always played an important part as a resource of food and greenstone (pounamu) and as a trade route.
It is noted for its whitebait (īnanga) and eels (tuna).
The Taramakau River reaches the ocean between Hokitika and Greymouth, North of the Arahura River. It runs as far as about 80km inland and forms part of an old trade route to the East Coast. It crosses the main divide over the saddle of the Harper's Pass and was well used until the discovery of Arthur's Pass.
The township of Kumara, once a flourishing gold-mining centre, is located on its southern bank. It is located some 8.5km upstream from the river mouth. It has been noted that gold diggers often found pounamu boulders in the same areas where they searched for gold. Anecdotes have it that Māori threw aside gold when harvesting pounamu and were more than happy for the white man to take it and leave them their treasured (taonga) pounamu.
In 2018 a two-lane bridge with dedicated shared walk and cycle path was opened to replace a single-lane wooden construction crossing the river. Up till then the Taramakau River Bridge was a one way bridge where cars and motorcycles shared with trains. A simple give way system worked well for many years until its replacement. The bridge is still used by Kiwi Rail.
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.