TE WHANGANUI-A-HEI & MOKOIA ISLAND: ENJOY THE SEA

Tonyi Tamaki at Whanganui-A-Hei, Cathedral Cove

This morning, Tina Picotes has visited one of the most beautiful places in New Zealand. It's the Whanganui-A-Hei or Cathedral Cove, a Marine Reserve on the Coromandel Peninsula in New Zealand, covering an area of 840 hectares. The area is very popular with tourists, and receives around 150,000 visitors per year.

The Māori name Te Whanganui-A-Hei, the Great Bay of Hei, refers to Hei, a tohunga from the Te Arawa waka. According to tradition, Hei chose the area around Mercury Bay as home for his tribe, proclaiming ownership by calling Motueka Island Te Kuraetanga-o-taku-Ihu, the outward curve of my nose. It is said he made this claim near the site of the present-day of Hahei.

The cave and beach was used as the tunnel through which the Pevensie children first re-enter Narnia in the movie version of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. 

More information: Departament of Conservation-Te Papa Atawhai

After visiting Whanganui-A-Hei, Tonyi Tamaki has wanted to visit Mokoia Island that is located in Lake Rotorua in New Zealand. It has an area of 1.35 square kilometres. The uninhabited island is a rhyolite lava dome, rising to 180 metres above the lake surface. It was formed after the Rotorua caldera collapsed and rhyolitic magma was pushed through the cracks. One of the cracks was below where Mokoia island is today.

Tina & Joseph ready to sail to Mokoia Island

The foreshores of the island have geothermal springs with hot spring water forming the Hinemoa pool, known to locals as Waikimihia. It also has very rich volcanic soil, which was why the local Māori grew kumara on it. it was also a very good strategic location, which was why it was often fought over.

Mokoia Island is privately owned by local Māori iwi, who run it in conjunction with the New Zealand Department of Conservation. It is a bird sanctuary and access is limited to tour parties only. It is home to several rare species, including the North Island kōkako, the North Island brown kiwi, and a breeding population of the endangered North Island saddleback.

The island is also the location of regular Mau rākau training camps in the Maori martial art of taiaha.

The island is sacred to Māori of the Te Arawa iwi, and is the location of one of the most famous legends of New Zealand, that of Hinemoa and Tūtānekai, which has parallels with the classical Greek tale of Hero and Leander.

More information: Mokoia Island

According to legend, the two lovers were forbidden to marry, and Hinemoa's father Umukaria, a chief from the shores of the lake, ordered that she not be allowed to travel by canoe to Tūtānekai's tribal village on the island. Hinemoa decided to swim 3.2 kilometres across the lake to the island, guided by the sound of Tūtānekai's flute-playing. For flotation she wrapped rushes, a type of reed, around her and swam her way to the island. According to another version, she made a flotation device from gourds.

The Te Arawa version of the widely known traditional Maori love song Pokarekare Ana references the story of Hinemoa and Tūtānekai. The lyrics imply Hinemoa's crossing the lake to reach Tūtānekai.

Meanwhile the rest of the group has been resting on the beach, The Grandma has read a new story of Rosemary Border's Ghost Stories and she has studied two new lessons (Grammar 10 & 11) of her First Certificate Language Practice manual.

More information: Relative clauses

My dream home would be a fishing lodge in New Zealand.

John Rocha