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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 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.
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"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."
Okarito
As a symbol of things both beautiful and rare, the kōtuku occupied an important place in Māori life, and to compare a visitor to a kōtuku was a compliment of the highest order. These uncommon and majestic birds breed at only one location in Aotearoa, near Whataroa on the West Coast. In 1865 the goldmining township of Okarito sprang up on low-lying frequently flooded land at the south end of the Okarito Lagoon because the entrance channel was the nearest place suitable for shipping for the beach goldfields to the South.)
Ōkārito Lagoon
Covering more than 2,000 hectares of shallow open water and tidal flats, Ōkārito Lagoon is the largest unmodified wetland in New Zealand. On the landward site it is surrounded by conifer–broadleaf forest, including stands of huge kahikatea and rimu. The lagoon is well known as a bird-watchers’ paradise, and over 70 native species have been identified.
Okarito has a history of human activity that dates back to the earliest arrivals of Polynesian peoples. Māori occupation and seasonal harvesting in Okarito began over 600 years ago. Various hapū held manawhenua here over the centuries. Kāti Wairaki reputedly built a large pā on the Kohuamarua Bluff. Ngāi Tahu currently hold manawhenua. In recognition of the importance of Ōkārito Lagoon to local Māori, Ngāi Tahu were granted statutory acknowledgement over the lagoon as part of their 1998 Treaty of Waitangi settlement, including designation of a nohoanga (coastal occupation site).
The geocache is placed at one of the historic locations in Okarito. There is also an information board and monument with more history of Okarito nearby. If you have time a trip to the Okarito Trig is highly recommended.
Cache placed by Victoriousone for the Ministry of Education.