The Tuia Mātauranga Pōkai 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 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 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.
Immigrants from every corner of the world have made their way to New Zealand. Some groups are well known, others not so. Until recently many residents of Tuatapere were unaware that many families from Hungary had settled in their small township over 100 years ago.
On Saturday 21 November 2020, a plaque was unveiled commemorating the first four families who made the shift from the Central European country Hungry to settle in the Tuatapere District.
Although Hungarians came to Southland in the 1900s during the gold rush, none are believed to have permanently settled here.
In 1906 István (Stephen) Rácz came to Tuatapere, and after writing a letter home, the Szivák, Kollát and Kókay families came out in 1911. It is thought than over the next decade 100 families followed.
On arrival they cleared land, worked in sawmills and as farmers.
As well as these “first 4 families”, Hungarian refugees arrived in the district in 1956 after escaping the Hungarian Revolution.
There are about 12 descendants of the four families now living in the Tuatapere District.
Hungarians settled in many places across New Zealand and some of their descendants have left their mark in the district and across New Zealand in local government, arts, sports, world record holders (oyster chucking) and science.
The plaque commemorating the first four Hungarian families to arrive in Tautapere has been attached to a newly built seat near the Waiau Memorial Library.
Once you have located the seat, you will find 2 years on the plaque. The first is the year of arrival - abcd. The second is the Year of Hungarian National Unity - efgh
- From the posted coordinates, take a bearing of ab.hd degrees for a distance of ae.(d+g) meters
https://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/123472599/plaque-unveiled-in-tuatapere-to-commemorate-hungarian-connection
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_New_Zealanders