Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
MAORI NZ: ROTORUA & THE BAY OF PLENTY
The Bay of Plenty's traditional name, Te Rohe o Mataatua, recalls the ancestral
Mataatuacanoe, which arrived here from Hawaiki to make an eventful landfall at
Whakatane. The region's history stretches back further than that, though, with the
Polynesian settler Toi setting up what's claimed to be Aotearoa's first settlement in
about AD 800.
torua. Tribes in this region were involved on both sides of the Land Wars of the late
19th century, with those fighting against the government suffering considerable
land confiscations that have caused legal problems right up to the present day.
There's a significant Maori population around the region, and many ways for
travellers to engage with Maori culture. Opotiki has Hiona St Stephen's Church
(
Click here
) - the death here of government spy Reverend Carl Volkner in 1865 in-
spired the charming eyeball-eating scene in Utu. Whakatane has a visitor-friendly
main-street marae(
Click here
)
(meeting house complex) and Toi's Pa, perhaps
NZ's oldest pa(fortified village) site. Rotorua has traditional Maori villages, hangi
and cultural performances aplenty.
With peace in the early 1870s, word spread of scenic wonders, miraculous landscapes
and watery cures for all manner of diseases. Rotorua boomed. Its main attraction was the
fabulous Pink and White Terraces, formed by volcanic silica deposits. Touted at the time
as the eighth natural wonder of the world, they were destroyed in the 1886 Mt Tarawera
eruption.
