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.
The Tuia Mātauranga - Pōkai Whenua GeoTour: Tahi 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 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 piece.
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.
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What’s in a name? PUKENUI
Puke – hill; nui – big ( a high hill)
Houhora Mountain was the first part of New Zealand that the early explorer Kupe saw, but he thought it was a whale, according to Māori stories. Houhora was a Māori base settlement in the early 14th century. Snapper, seals, dolphins, moa and other birds were food sources.
James Cook named Mt Camel, on the north head of Houhora Harbour, on 10 December 1769. He described it in his log as "a high mountain or hill standing upon a desert shore."
Te Houtaewa was a Te Aupōuri athlete, who was killed at Pukenui during the Musket Wars of the early 19th century.
Hone Heke was defeated by Tāmati Wāka Nene in the Battle of Te Ahuahu at Pukenui on 12 June 1845.
In the 19th century, Houhora Harbour provisioned whalers, and residents mounted their own whaling expeditions in open boats. Three families - Wagener, Subritzky and Yates - settled in the area to farm and trade. The Subritzky family, who arrived near Motueka in 1843, claim to be New Zealand's first Polish settlers. They moved to Australia and then to Houhora Heads. Their homestead there took two years to build in the 1860s. It was sold to a member of the Wagener family in 1897. The homestead, now largely restored, is open to the public. The Wagener Museum at Houhora Heads, built by W E Wagener, was built near the homestead. It contained an eclectic collection of artefacts, but closed in 2003 and a substantial part of the collection was sold off.
A lifeboat from SS Elingamite, which was wrecked on the Three Kings Islands on 9 November 1902, arrived in Houhora the following day with 52 survivors. One of the whalers immediately was dispatched to intercept any vessel along the coast to divert it to the Three Kings. This mission was successful.