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.
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There are three main sites of interest related to Cook's 1769 visit to the Firth of Thames area: the Endeavour's anchorage in the Firth, the pa site visited when Cook and a small party voyaged by two ship's boats up the Waihou, and the place where they went ashore to measure a large kahikatea. The anchorage has been established as off the coast from Te Puru / Waiomu, the pā visited was undoubtedly Oruarangi pā, but the location of the kahikatea is open to speculation.
At, or about, the furthest limit of the Endeavour party's voyage up the Waihou River, the party measured a large kahikatea and took some samples of what is now believed to be a mātai. This site is of at least national importance, as Cook's measurement of the kahikatea, and report of vast timber resources, was the catalyst for the prolific ships' spar and kauri timber trades which followed his return to England.
Cook wrote “... we landed on the West side in order to take a View of the lofty Trees which adorne its banks, being at this time 12 or 14 Miles within the entrance [of the river mouth] … we had not gone a hundred yards into the woods before we found a Tree that girted 19 feet 8 inches, 6 feet above the ground, and having a Quadrant with me, I found its length from the root to the first branch to be 89 feet; it was as Streight as an Arrow and Taper'd but very little in proportion to its length, so that I judged that there was 356 Solid feet of timber in this Tree, clear of the branches. We saw many others of the same sort, several of which were Taller than the one we measured, and all of them very stout…” 
Local anecdotal evidence puts the site immediately downsteam of the small town of Netherton. A measurement of 12-14 nautical miles from the 1769 mouth indicates the site was somewhere between the mouth of the Hikutaia Stream and the junction of SH2 with Hauraki Rd (known locally as Sarjant's Corner).
An article in the 1969 Ohinemuri Regional History Journal ‘In The Wake of Cook’ by Tony Barker suggests that the tree measured by Cook was known to local iwi, who regarded it as sacred: “In the vicinity of Netherton, the left bank particularly interested us, primarily because of 'Cook's Tree'. For many years this was regarded by the Maoris as 'tapu', hence it survived as a living memento of the famous explorer. Eventually milling interests had it cut down, but the stump [which was hollow] remained for many more years and was photographed by the late Mr. Courtenay Kenny [early surveyor in Paeroa].”
Whether this was the tree actually measured by Cook is open to speculation. An obvious issue is: how was it known and remembered, in an area where there would have been numerous kahikatea of the same age and size. However, it is possible that iwi members followed Cook's party and observed the tree being measured, or the crew 'cruised' the tree (i.e. cut an upward-pointing arrow in it) with an axe, to mark it as HM property. Two historical sources state Cook (or his crew) elsewhere marked trees with the name of the ship and the date: Beaglehole (1955) re a tree at Mercury Bay, and Kitson (1911) re a tree on Norfolk Island.
Begg and Begg (1969) state: ”Maori tradition identifies the tree which Cook measured as a kahikatea which grew on the west [true left] bank of the river near Hikutaia. It was felled for milling just before 1900, and its measurements tallied exactly with those given by Cook.”
Although there is considerable historical evidence supporting this location to be the site of the measured kahikatea, other evidence does not support it. Cook’s chart does not reach this stretch of the river, so an alternative theory is that Cook landed at the point that the chart finishes. Also, the river narrows after the Hikutaia stream, and yet Banks wrote “As far as this the river had kept its depth and very little decreasd even in breadth”.
Even if the kahikatea site is not identified exactly, the full range of possible sites (from about 2 kms downstream from the Hikutaia junction to the downstream end of Captain Cook Rd) still only covers about three kilometres of river bank (or about 1.5 km2 total area), and any memorial which states: 'in this vicinity ...' would still be factually correct.
The approximate site of the kahikatea measuring has been memorialised, in two separate locations (in 1975 and 2011):
A possible landing area was identified back in 1975 as part of the Paeroa district centenary celebrations. A small stone plinth with a small anchor cemented to it was placed on the left bank of the Waihou River, close to Sarjant's Corner (before it was realigned) at the intersection of Hauraki Road and SH2. This spot was not ideal as the monument could not be easily viewed from the road, and there was no easy access for motorists to park off the busy roads.
This monument (minus anchor, but with the bolts previously used to mount it) has been re-erected along Captain Cook Road, at a site considered to be closer to the tree that Cook's party measured.
The above information is taken from a 2019 article by Dave Wilton: “Cook Landmarks at 'The Thames' (New Zealand), November 1769” in the Treasury Journal.
The cache is hidden near the resited 1975 memorial at the end of Captain Cook Road.
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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.