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 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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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.
Ngāruawāhia is a town rich in history, the home of Kīngitanga, (The Māori King Movement) with its official residence at Tūrangawaewae Marae. The town was also known for Hopuhopu camp up until 1989 when it ceased to be an active military camp. My father was the Major at the camp for several years. He and Dame Te Atairangikaahu, the Māori queen, had a strong mutual respect for each other. Many days after school, Tūrangawaewae marae was where I called home.
The name Ngāruawāhia means "the opened food pits", which comes from a great feast in the 17th century.Te Ngaere, a Ngāti Tamainupō chief, and Heke-i-te-rangi, a Ngāti Maniapoto woman, had eloped and settled at Ngāruawāhia, causing a rift between their tribes. When their first child was born, Ngāti Maniapoto were invited to the celebration in an attempt to reconcile the tribes. Te Ngaere's father named the boy Te Mana-o-te-rangi in honour of Ngāti Maniapoto. Peace was established between the tribes, and Te Ngaere shouted "Wāhia ngā rua" (break open the food pits).
Kīngitanga, is a movement that arose among some Māori tribes of New Zealand in the central North Island in the 1850s, to establish a role similar in status to the monarch of the British colonists, as a way of halting the alienation of Māori land and protect Māori autonomy. The Māori monarch operates in a non-constitutional capacity with no legal or judicial power within the New Zealand government. Reigning monarchs retain the position of paramount chief of several iwi and has helped bring independent tribal communities together to protect their tribal identities and resources. especially within Tainui. It is Kīngitanga that gives its name to the well-known term for the Waikato region, The King Country.
Tūrangawaewae marae includes the carved Mahinarangi meeting house, built in 1929, and next to it, Turongo House, the Māori king or queen's official residence, built in 1938. The two houses are named after Mahinarangi, an East Coast "princess", and her husband Turongo, a Tainui chief. Turongo's house interior and exterior surfaces have been carved extensively and have incorporated many symbols important to the Kīngitanga movement. A seven-sided tower in the corner represents the waka that, according to tradition, brought the Māori people to their new home of Aotearoa. It has been host to many world leaders and showcases Māoridom not only in New Zealand but to the world.
The posted coords will take you to a plaque in front of a sculpture and across the road from Tūrangawaewae House and the information on the plaque is needed to calculate the final coordinates.
S37 39.ABC E175 08.DEF
A = # of letters 1st paragraph, 2nd line, 3rd word
B = # of letters 5th paragraph, 4th line, 4th word
C = last digit of the year that his sculpture was unveiled minus 2
D = # of letters 2nd paragraph, 2nd line, 11th word
E = 2nd digit of the year this sculpture was unveiled plus 1
F = # of letters 4th paragraph, 4th line, 4th word minus 7
Checksum of missing digits = 25
Once you have done your calculation add .008 to your calculated south coordinates and add .006 to the east coordinates as the cache has moved slightly