The Tuia Matauranga Pokai Whenua GeoTour follows the footsteps of early explorers of Aotearoa New Zealand taking you to places where leaders of the past searched for food, resources and ways to adapt and survive in this new land.
Use the Pokai Whenua GeoTour as your classroom to explore the stories of the past, in the present, to preserve what is unique in Aotearoa New Zealand for the future.
Collect the codewords to get the Geocoin puzzle pieces.
To be able to complete this GeoTour and receive your special Geocoin collectable, remember to take a note of the codeword placed in the cache. This will need to be recorded in your passport which can be downloaded here.
63 of the 150 Pokai Whenua GeoTour caches will contain a randomly placed special FTF token (a replica of the Tuia Matauranga GeoTour commemorative coin). This is yours to keep! If you find more than one, you might consider leaving it for the next person who finds the cache.
Before people arrived, more than 80% of New Zealand was covered in dense forest.
Archaeological evidence shows a huge increase in charcoal and bracken spores around the 13th and 14th centuries. At the same time, there was a massive decline in pollen from forest trees, marking a striking and devastating change: up to 40% of the forest was burnt within 200 years of Māori settling in New Zealand. Radiocarbon dating shows that deforestation began at the same time throughout the country.
Reasons for clearing the forest included opening up the landscape to make it more habitable. Crops could be grown, and bracken fern was encouraged for its edible starchy rhizomes. Burning also kept tracks clear and made travel easier.
Erosion did not always follow deforestation, even in areas that are now very erosion-prone. The dense bracken with its network of rhizomes, and the tree stumps that remained after burning, would have protected against the landslides and soil erosion caused by heavy rain.
But as Europeans settled in New Zealand, they brought more changes to the remaining forests; animal diversity and landscape stability. Along with immigrants came new animals, crop plants, parasites and diseases. The remaining lowland forests and scrubland were burnt, drained, logged and cleared for farms and cropping.
By 2005, forest cover was reduced to 24.8% of the total land area.
When the settlers cleared the bush for farming, they removed tree stumps and the protective cover of ferns and scrub – unlike the 13th-century deforestation, which left these in place. The loose soils in hilly areas became very vulnerable to erosion, especially during heavy rain. This can trigger massive slips, and the runoff to rivers carries high sediment loads. Over time, river mouths and estuarine systems have become silted up further affecting those ecosystems.
Originally Taihape was a small natural clearing in dense bush, somewhat isolated from a Māori route which followed the Rangitikei Valley. It was uninhabited and its full name was Otaihape, “the place of Tai the Hunchback.”
The first recorded European visitor to the Taihape district was William Colenso in 1845. In 1884, when the Main Trunk railway route had been decided on, a surveyor's party cut a rough track through the district. With the first settlers arriving from Canterbury the town is considered to have been founded in 1894.
Sawmills had been established, and the first settlers were employed as sawmillers and roadmen. The railway line reached Taihape in November 1904 and railway construction workers were able to acquire small farms nearby, thus helping further to consolidate the settlement. At first the settlement was called Hautapu, from the nearby river, but the name was soon changed to Otaihape to avoid confusion with other places similarly named. Later it was contracted to Taihape.
Apart from clearing the forest land for agriculture, the settlers also needed wood for houses, fencing and firewood, and soon for railway sleepers. Harder woods such as totara and beech made sturdy posts, and totara and rata were also used for wharfs. Rata, manuka and matai became fuel for cooking, heating and, later, industrial use. Kahikatea was chosen for housing and roof shingles and later became the preferred wood for export butter boxes. Rimu was little utilised at first, the honey-coloured straight-grained kauri was the favourite for building houses and boats, and making furniture.
This multi cache introduces those trees using label signs on the middle track around Mt Stewart.
The Final is at S 39° 40.ABC E 175° 47.XYZ where ...
A = the 1st digit of height of this tree
Māori used the wood for carving; canoes, canoe bailers, small agricultural implements and handles. They also drank the liquid as a beer to treat consumption and as an antiseptic.
B = the 2nd digit of height of this tree
Māori apparently had no medicinal use for this tree but its timber was highly regarded; mainly being used for weapon and tool construction. For example wedges for splitting wood, kō (digging sticks), canoe paddles and bailers, beaters, mallets and, while too heavy for some weapons, was used for thin, double pointed spears.
C = the 1st digit of height of this tree
All parts of this tree had medicinal applications for Māori, and the fruit can be eaten, but is most prized to Māori for canoe building and carving, especially associated with wharenui.
X = the 4th digit of the tree's height
The berries of this tree are sweet and edible while a decoction from the bark was used by Māori for stomach aches, colds and treating wounds. Because it is prone to the 'worm' they had little use for the timber other than as firewood.
Y = the sum of height digits
This tree was an important food source to Māori; the rhizome, stem, shoot, leaves are all used. The juice makes a good 'beer'. Utilised as a medicine for dysentery and diarrhoea. The fibre was used for clothing, cloaks, mats, baskets, and spun into threads, cords, ropes.
Z = the 1st digit of the tree's height
This tree was important as a dye and tattooing pigment using soot from burning the wood. The berries were used as a significant food source at feasts. The timber while prone to 'worm' does not taint food.
Checksum is 27.
References:
Janet Wilmshurst. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, 'Human effects on the environment - Pre-European deforestation'. http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/human-effects-on-the-environment/page-2 (Accessed 8 Nov 2020)
Janet Wilmshurst. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, 'Human effects on the environment - European impact'. http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/human-effects-on-the-environment/page-3 (Accessed 8 Nov 2020)
Taihape, from An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, edited by A. H. McLintock, originally published in 1966. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand http://teara.govt.nz/en/1966/taihape (Accessed 8 Nov 2020)
Landcare Research: Ngā Tipu Whakaoranga, Māori Plant Use https://maoriplantuse.landcareresearch.co.nz/ (Accessed 8 Nov 2020)