Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ESSENTIAL TARANAKI & WHANGANUI
Eat
In one of Palmerston North's hip George St eateries
Drink
A bottle of Mike's Pale Ale from Mike's Organic Brewery
Read
The
Wanganui Chronicle
, NZ's oldest newspaper
Listen to
The rockin' album
Back to the Burning Wreck
by Whanganui riff-monsters The Have
Watch
The Last Samurai
, co-starring Tom Cruise (Mt Taranaki gets top billing)
Go green
Paddle a stretch of the Whanganui River, an awe-inspiring slice of NZ wilderness
Area code
06
History
Local Maori
iwi
(tribes) have long contested Taranaki lands. In the 1820s they fled to the
Cook Strait region to escape Waikato tribes, who eventually took hold of the area in 1832.
Only a small group remained, at Okoki Pa (New Plymouth). When European settlers ar-
rived in 1841, the coast of Taranaki seemed deserted and there was little opposition to
land claims. The New Zealand Company bought extensive tracts from the remaining
Maori.
When other members of local tribes returned after years of exile, they fiercely objected
to the land sale. Their claims were upheld by Governor Fitzroy, but the Crown gradually
acquired more land from Maori, and European settlers sought these fertile lands. The set-
tlers forced the government to abandon negotiations with Maori, and war erupted in 1860.
By 1870 over 500 hectares of Maori land had been confiscated.
Ensuing economic growth was largely founded on dairy farming. The 1959 discoveries
of natural gas and oil in the South Taranaki Bight have kept the province economically
healthy in recent times.
