Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Kupe, the great Polynesian explorer, is believed to have travelled 20km up the Whan-
ganui around AD 800; Maori lived here by 1100. By the time Europeans put down roots
in the late 1830s, Maori settlements lined the river valley. Missionaries sailed upstream
and their settlements - at Hiruharama, Ranana, Koriniti and Atene - have survived to this
day.
Paddle steamers first tackled the river in the mid-1860s. In 1886 a Whanganui company
established the first commercial steamer transport service. Others soon followed, utilising
the river between Whanganui and Taumarunui.
NZ's contemporary tourism leviathan was seeded here. Internationally advertised trips
on the 'Rhine of Maoriland' became so popular that by 1905, 12,000 tourists a year were
making the trip upriver from Whanganui to Pipiriki or downriver from Taumarunui. The
engineering feats and skippering ability required on the river became legendary.
From 1918 land upstream of Pipiriki was granted to returning WWI soldiers. Farming
here was a major challenge, with many families struggling for years to make the rugged
land productive. Only a few endured into the early 1940s.
The completion of the railway from Auckland to Wellington and the improving roads
ultimately signed river transport's death warrant; 1959 saw the last commercial riverboat
voyage. Today, just one old-fleet vessel cruises the river - the PS
Waimarie
(
Click here
)
.
