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."
This area is named 'Te Waha o te Kurī' , as Tarawhata (a 14th century traveller) had become separated from his dog Mahurangi, and located him here by the sound of his barking!
At the Published coordinates you will be standing at Te Waha o te Kurī Whare - one of a series of whare installed at significant sites along the river as part of the Tū Te Manawa project; an iwi led project managed by Rangitaane o Tamaki nui a Rua and co-funded by Horizons and the Ministry for the Environment through the Te Mana o te Wai project. The Tū Te Manawa project aims to bring whānau, hapū, iwi and community back to the awa.
There are lots of other stories in this whare - take the time to read them on the information boards contained in this whare – answer the questions and find where the Geocache is located.
Unless otherwise, stated, count the number of letters in the word.
The cache is located at…
S40 2A.BCD E175 4W.XYZ
A = The explorer's name - that of his dog
B =The map of Seventy Mile Bush was drawn in 187B
C = The Māori name of the sentinel species for this whare
D = Either of the mountain ranges the river flows between
W = The taniwha's name - 6
X = There was a severe flood in March 188X
Y = There was a settlement here in the 19Y0's
Z = In the severe flood “the river was Z meters deep near the cemetery”
Checksum (A+B+C+D+W+X+Y+Z) = 27
This started out as an ammocan, but that got muggled. The replacement container is smaller, so hopefuly lasts longer! Please make sure that it is closed properly and cover well before leaving.