The Tuia Mātauranga - Pōkai Whenua GeoTour: Rua 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 Pōkai Whenua GeoTour as your classroom to you 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 Pōkai Whenua GeoTour caches will contain a randomly placed special FTF token (a replica of the Tuia Mātauranga 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."
Near Pōrangahau in Hawke’s Bay is an unassuming hill who’s name translates into English as "The place where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, who slid, climbed and swallowed mountains, known as 'landeater’, played his flute to his loved one." Locals simply call it Taumata Hill.
Tamatea-pokai-whenua (Tamatea explorer of the land) was a famous chief, warrior and explorer. Born in Hawaiki he voyaged to Aotearoa on the Takitimu waka. One of his sons, Kahungunu, is ancestor of many local Māori.
One day, while travelling through the back of Pōrangahau, Tamatea encountered another tribe and had to fight them to get past. During the fight his brother was killed. Tamatea was so grieved over the loss of his brother that he stayed at the battle site for some days. Each morning he would sit on the hill and play a lament on the kōauau or Māori flute.
You can find the hill by driving south from Waipukurau for about 55 kilometres, turn right onto Wimbledon Road. A sign displaying the name is situated about five kilometres along this road. It’s a great photo opportunity.
Update December 2022 - The sign may be removed when you get there (see article below)
Locals want longest place name sign removed, with new sign on their land | Stuff.co.nz
If that has happened - don't panic, this is a puzzle cache, use the information in the picture above to work out where you need to be! If you get eally stuck, sent me a message and I'll help out.
The hill you are actually looking for is the one behind, shown by an arrow on the board.
The actual place is on private land, so permission is required before you can walk to it. This parking space is as close as you can get with a reasonable view.
(Source LINZ Topomaps)
While you are there, try saying the name as you work out the solution to this simple puzzle:
https://www.facebook.com/Stuff.co.nz/videos/how-to-pronounce-the-longest-place-names-in-new-zealand/10155759922564268/
Kīwaha - Give it a go!
The cache itself is a short drive away at:
S 40 (A – W). (I-H) (L) (N+R) E 176 (A+U+P) . (N-R) (H-O) (M)
The road is Tarsealed, but it is ‘out in the backblocks’, so make sure you have plenty of petrol before you go and take food and drink with you.
There is some phone reception at the parking spot and at the cache location, but I lost signal at a couple of points along the route, so download the cache details before you head out to be on the safe side.