Harbour Cone/Hereweka (Dunedin, Otago) Traditional Cache
Harbour Cone/Hereweka (Dunedin, Otago)
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Harbour Cone/Hereweka: yes, that 315 m high lopsided conical peak on Otago Peninsula. No problem guessing what you’re looking for!
The cache is deliberately placed a bit downhill of the summit, at 307 m elevation, in a spot with excellent views of Hoopers Inlet.
Approach is through the bracken, over a fairly rough boulder-field.
Watch out for lawyer!
The easiest route up Harbour Cone is from the carpark on Highcliff Road – it’s only a 165 m climb from there. Twenty or thirty minutes up (compulsory stops to admire the view from each marker post). A second route up starts from the top of the Bacon Street track. Routes are clearly marked with posts and have stiles over the fences.
Since this is a working farm, dogs are not allowed. Leave gates as you find them.
All historic sites (including the stone walls) are fully protected.
The area is closed for lambing 1 September to 1 November each year.
Download the Harbour Cone/ Hereweka track map here: HARBOUR CONE TRACK MAP
Hereweka interactive track map with information on points of interest: INTERACTIVE TRACK MAP
Points of Interest
Each patch of macrocarpa trees on Hereweka marks where a farmhouse once stood. As you cross the stile from the carpark and walk up to the ridgeline, the Nyhon homestead site is in the macrocarpas to your right, with the remains of the cow byre in the paddock – an 1885 ODT advertisement noted the proprty had a 5 roomed dwelling-house with 15-stall stone cowshed, stable, dairy and other outbuildings. The Nyhon family became the first major sheep farmers on the Hereweka block.
When you climb over the next stile and head towards the summit, you’re in what was Captain William Leslie’s property. The Leslies arrived on the 'Lord Worsley' in 1862 and made a living by splitting firewood at Grant Braes. Captain Leslie bought this section in 1865 or 1866. His house was below Highcliff road, on the shady south side of the hill. The farm was so steep that the only wheeled vehicles used were wheelbarrows and in later years a bicycle. Captain Leslie was a lay preacher and travelled widely to preach on Sundays. He lived on the Peninsula until 1908.
Next you cross a road formation heading from left to right. This is the bridle path/sledge track built to connect Captain William Leslie’s homestead with the later homestead of his son (also William Leslie), built on a sunny north-facing section above Hoopers Inlet.
Further up the hill is a huge fallen tree - proof that this was once forest.
Close to the summit is the remains of an old stone fence, with split totara fenceposts. This wall was the boundary of the Leslie and Allan properties.
Enjoy the view- you’ve earned it!
Geology
Like all the hills around Otago Harbour, Harbour Cone is a remnant of the eroded Dunedin volcano.
The lower part of the hill is trachyte and tuff (compacted volcanic ash) from the initial phase of the eruptions, 13 to 13.5 million years old. [PINK on the map.]
The top of the peak, roughly above the 250 m contour, is basalt from the first main eruptive phase, 12 to 13 million years old. [WHITE on the map.] As you reach the summit you will see (and walk over) fallen columnar basalt boulders, formed as the cooling lava flow cracked into ‘organ pipes’.
It is this harder basalt cap over the easily eroded softer rocks that gives Harbour Cone its distinctive shape.
GNS New Zealand Geology Web Map visit link
Tarewai's Story
The Maori name of the area, Hereweka, means 'catch weka' (the cone itself is Pukemata, ‘pointed hill’).
You wouldn't believe what the Ngai Tahu warrior Tarewai did around here…
Tarewai migrated from Rapaki cache in the early 1700s and captured Pukekura Pa at Taiaroa Head. The Ngati Mamoe residents invited Tarewai to assist a house building workparty near the Pyramids cache, followed by a meal and ‘friendly’ wrestling. By this ruse the Ngai Tahu men were killed.
Tarewai was held down, for the Ngati Mamoe chief Whakatakanewa to eat his heart. But as the Ngati Mamoe began to slice Tarewai with their stone blades, the arrival of strangers distracted his captors. Tarewai broke loose and escaped into the bush, leaving behind his whalebone patu Kakoauau.
For some weeks Tarewai hid on the forest-covered slopes of Harbour Cone, treating his wounds with weka oil. Then at night Tarewai entered the Ngati Mamoe village at Papanui Inlet, where the men were seated around a fire admiring Tarewai’s treasured weapon. Knowing that one of the Ngati Mamoe had a speech impediment, Tarewai pretended to have a stutter and asked if he could hold the patu. When it was handed to him, Tarewai shouted that he had his bravery back and disappeared into the night.
For several months afterwards Tarewai roamed the area, killing individual Ngati Mamoe as they came to collect water. He then returned to the besieged Pukekura pa, where he made a famous leap over the palisade... (Wouldn’t it have been simpler to call the Portobello Police, 478-0209 at 1710 Highcliff Rd…?)
European Settlement:
The 1844 Otakou Block purchase from Ngāi Tahu by the New Zealand Company included Harbour Cone as well as most of the rest of the Peninsula. The area was subdivided into land titles in 1863.
Many of the stone walls you see are boundary walls built along these first survey lines. When barbed wire became available in the 1870s, that was used instead.
Clearing the Bush
Before European settlement, most of Otago Peninsula was covered in podocarp-broadleaf forest, with some clearances from Maori gardening and forest fires. In 1864 Peter Thomson looked from Signal Hill and saw that Harbour Cone had "bush to the summit" and visiting Portobello the area was "a tract of almost impenetrable bush, with only a few small clearings". By 1870 “Pakeha” found that on the Portobello side, settlers had already cleared the bush almost to the top of Harbour Cone.
Peter wrote about his Ramble up Harbour Cone in the Otago Daily Times 2 April 1870:
The country here is covered with heavy timber, comprising totara and all the pines, and some of the trees are very large. The undergrowth is very dense, the supplejack being particularly plentiful, rendering progress through the bush at times very tedious.
Till within the last couple of years or so, it was one unbroken forest from base to summit, but the march of settlement has somewhat marred its beauty on the harbour side, as some large clearings have been made on it, reaching from the road to a short distance from the top. On the southern side, however, there has been much less clearing, although there too, it has begun, and the axe and fire are busy at work destroying the natural beauties of the locality.
It was from the south side the ascent was made, and passing across a small bit of cleared land, the bush was reached, and the shade of the trees was found a great relief from the hot glare of the noontide sun. Once in the bush, and civilisation seemed as far away as if there were none within a hundred miles. Everything was very quiet at first, but then a mokomoko [bellbird] began to warble its rich full notes, which made the hillside seem quite lively.
The ascent, though not very steep, was difficult on account of the supplejacks; but a cattle track was found which made matters easier, and by its means a point was reached where a number of voices were heard. Pushing through a thicket of veronica, panax, and stunted totara, the top of the hill came into view, and there were found the Portobello schoolmaster and a number of his pupils, who had come up here to spend their holiday in a pic-nic, and have a look round at the charming prospect.
Today on top of Harbour Cone only a patch of second-growth bush remains, growing on the volcanic boulder-field – broadleaf, mahoe and hounds-tongue fern. This bush remnant is being damaged by stock browsing at present, but will be protected and enhanced under the management plan. It’s a nice spot to get out of the wind!
Farming
The first farms here were family dairy holdings – perhaps a dozen cows, a flock of hens, some pigs and a vege garden. It was a struggle to make a living from a farm of around 40 acres (16 ha), but the limitation was the number of cows which could be milked by hand. Cream was churned into butter at home, for sale in Dunedin.
In 1877 a group of eleven Harbour Cone farmers built a cheese factory beside Captain William Leslie’s homestead, in the macrocarpas just below Highcliff Road, and sold the cheese to a Dunedin retailer for the good price of about 7d a pound. Unfortunately the factory – and very nearly Leslie's house - was destroyed by bush fires visit link visit link that swept the Peninsula in 1881. Capt Leslie tried another cash crop - dandelion coffee!
Once the Sandymount Creamery opened in 1892, farmers would cart their milk to Sandymount once a day and return with their share of the skim milk. The Sandymount Creamery was still open in 1922, but by that time many of the small holdings had been amalgamated and converted to sheepfarming.
We Own Hereweka/Harbour Cone!
When the 328 hectare Harbour Cone property came on the market in 2008, there were fears that a developer would purchase the land and divide it up into 15 hectare blocks. After community pressure, it was bought by the Dunedin City Council to protect its significant landscape, heritage and recreational values. Most of the land is leased for grazing, with tracks marked and ecological restoration projects underway in several areas.
Further Information
Harbour Cone/ Hereweka track map: HARBOUR CONE /HEREWEKA TRACK MAP
Hereweka interactive track map with information on points of interest: INTERACTIVE TRACK MAP
1922 map [Shows homesteads and Sandymount Creamery]: View 1922 map
Hereweka Harbour Cone: a relict landscape on the Otago Peninsula [includes interesting excerpts from William Leslie (the son)’s memoirs]: Visit link
DCC Hereweka Harbour Cone Management Plan [excellent background info & map of historic sites] visit link
Amanda Nunn blogsite - A Tour of Archaeological Sites on Harbour Cone: visit link
Peter Thomson “Pakeha” Rambles: visit link
GNS New Zealand Geology Web Map: visit link
Otago Peninsula vegetation, Johnson 2004: visit link
NZ Dairy Industry info: visit link
Versions of Tarewai’s story and other local Maori history:
The Maoris of the South Island by T A Pybus: visit link
Project Next resource consent submission for Te Runanga o Otakou: visit link
Te whakatuwheratanga o Te Tumu Herenga Waka : 6 Tihema 1986, Poneke, Te Whare Wananga o Wikitoria by Maori Studies Dept VUW: visit link
Lore and history of the South Island Maori W A Taylor: view link
South island Maori A sketch of their history Canon Stack 1898: view link
Goldmining in Battery Creek [Sadly, we can't visit it; the mine site is on private land]
Council-owned land once yielded gold and silver. ODT 11 Oct 2008: view link
The Occurrence of Gold at Harbour Cone by C. N. Boult, 1905 [Harbour Cone cross-section is incorrect]: view link
MINING NOTES. Otago Witness, 22 October 1886: view link
Prospects of Hoopers Inlet mine. Otago Witness 12 November 1886: view link
THE HARBOUR CONE GOLD MINING WORKS. Otago Witness 11 February 1887: view link
The Harbour Cone Gold Mine. Otago Witness 25 March 1887: view link
Sent to Ballarat for testing. Otago Witness 15 April 1887: view link
Trial crushing 17 tons. Otago Witness 23 December 1887: view link
Peninsula Mining. Otago Witness 12 September 1889: view link
THE AURIFEROUS CAPABILITIES OF THE PENINSULA, DUNEDIN. Otago Daily Times, 4 November 1889: view link
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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