The largest movement above sea level (Wairarapa) Traditional Cache

PARKING

There is parking only on the eastern side of the road, with a gravel area near GZ. You can get your car completely off the road, but please don't go as far as to park on the cycleway (the path covered in lime). Be careful (especially if your have children with you) when crossing the road, as the locals tend to drive fast up and down the road.

At 9.17 pm on Tuesday, 23 January 1855 the earth shook from our most severe earthquake (8.2 on the Richter Scale) to have occurred in New Zealand since in 1840. The epicentre of this earthquake was at a depth of 25 km below Cook Strait and released a thousand times more energy than the Hiroshima atomic bomb. Its energy travelled outwards and upwards at speeds reaching six kilometres per second.

The shaking was felt from Auckland to Dunedin and caused damage from Kaikōura in the South Island to Cambridge in the North Island, with severe damage in Wellington and the Wairarapa. The Wairarapa fault had ruptured for a distance of over 150 km (including at least 15 km under the sea), and 5000 sq km of land to the west of the fault was uplifted and tilted. About 10 minutes after the first shock, a tsunami swept the coast on both sides of Cook Strait. In Wellington the wave went over the Rongotai isthmus. There were massive landslides in the hills, especially in the Remutaka Range. Aftershocks continued for over a year. The earthquake virtually destroyed the Remutaka road. Charles Bidwell, returning to his home in the southern Wairarapa from the Hutt the day after the earthquake, walked the whole distance, jumping the fissures and threading his way among the great landslides and cracks in the continually quaking hillside.

Almost the whole of the Wairarapa Plain was crisscrossed by crevices up to five metres deep and extending for many hundreds of metres. Ploughed ground, mud and dry river- and pond-beds “were thrown up into all sorts of undulations like a short choppy sea, the ridges in some cases 2 feet [0.6 m] in height.” The land moved over horizontally 18 metres along the Wairarapa Fault and was uplifted by as much as 6.4 metres. This huge horizontal distance is the largest to have been caused by a single earthquake on a land-based fault known from anywhere in the world.

Over 160 years later you can still see the landslide caused by this earthquake as you drive along State Highway 2 from Wellington to the Hutt Valley.

According to Māori creation stories, Rūaumoko is the god of earthquakes and volcanoes. In the beginning, it was dark. Ranginui, the Skyfather, and Papatūānuku, the Earthmother, held each other tightly. Ranginui and Papatūānuku had seven sons, Tūmatauenga, Tāwhirimātea, Tānemāhuta, Tangaroa, Rongomātāne and Haumietiketike, who lived in the darkness. The brothers decided that they would separate their parents. Tānemāhuta, the strongest of the siblings, laid down with his back to his mother and his feet pressed against his father. With a mighty heave, he pushed and separated his father from his mother and light appeared. However, Rūaumoko, still inside his mother’s belly, could feel the battle above and feel the pain of his mother as she was separated from his father. The anger welled up inside him and he began to kick and stomp inside his mother’s belly. This made the earth shake angrily and the land rolled and twisted, making what we know as earthquakes. When Rūaumoko sleeps, the earth is peaceful. When he is awake, he can cause volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and tsunamis.

At GZ look to the mountains. A steep scarp uplifted by earthquake ruptures of the fault can be seen. The fault itself runs along the base of the scarp, which is the product of several earthquakes over the last few thousand years. This is one place in NZ where you can easily see the results of an earthquake in such a dramatic fashion.

Andrew Boyes' photograph below shows quite clearly the result of displacement of the tectonic plates in the earthquake at Pigeon Bush (private land and not open to the public).

More information and photographs can be found at Julian Thomson's website.