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NZ - Buried Village; Te Wairoa / Pompeii
Topic Started: Mar 2 2007, 03:22 PM (588 Views)
Kahu
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The Rotorua thermal area has been a tourist attraction for a long time. When travel world wide was limited to sailing ships and travel on land limited to railways and 6 horse coach travel, this area attracted something like a thousand visitors a year! They came to see some of the great wonders of the natural world - The Pink and White Terraces!

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Te Tarata, the White Terrace, was a spectacular sinter terrace located on the northeastern shore of the ancestral Lake Rotomahana. A world renown tourist attraction, it was destroyed during the 1886 AD Tarawera eruption. This painting of 'The White Terraces' is by Charles Blomfield (1888) (reproduced with permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand)


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This lithograph by W.Potts is from a painting 'Mt Tarawera in eruption, June 10, 1886 ( From the native village of Waitangi, Lake Tarawera, NZ)' by Charles Blomfield (c 188?) (reproduced with permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand)


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The 1886 eruption of Mt Tarawera began shortly after midnight on June 10. Craters along a rift extending 8 km NE SW across the mountain were erupting basaltic scoria by 2:30am, with an eruption cloud extending to a height of at least 9.5 km. Eruptions spread southwards into the Rotomahana area at 3:20am. Violent steam explosions were produced here when hot rock encountered surface and subsurface water in this area. Most of the damage and loss of life from the eruption was produced by directed blasts and ash clouds from Rotomahana and Waimangu and not by the activity at Tarawera. The eruption had essentially ceased by 6am, leaving a large area, principally to the north, covered by scoria erupted from Tarawera and finer ash from Rotomahana. Very fine ash in the eruption column was blown south and east to reach Hawke's Bay. Bruce Houghton & Bradley Scott
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Kahu
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Kahu
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Te Wairoa - the Buried Village

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McRae's Hotel was a similar style building to the Visitor's Centre today. A two storied building with a surrounding verandah and detached kitchen / bakery and below ground cellar. The building collapsed under the weight of the mud and ash with the death of one of the guests.

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A perlite pataka. Perlite is a soft easily workable volcanic rock, used as an insulation material and horticultural medium today. A pataka is a storehouse. This is the excavated building today.

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The excavated cellar of McRae's Hotel - bottles of whiskey and beer have been excavated unopened, and found to be in good condition.

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The bakery oven

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Its a beautiful, peaceful part of the country which belies the devastation that once occurred here. Many of the original fence posts have taken root and over the years have developed into a grand avenue vista.

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An excavated whare [Far - ray] house.

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The sole survivor Tohu, a tohunga, (a learned man, expert, witch doctor) was buried for several days in this house and survived. He strangely was blamed by the rest of his tribe for bringing the disaster on a christian village! He died 10 days after being dug out.

Only the european buildings collapsed, hotel, church, school......traditional maori buildings were buried intact.
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So was Te Wairoa buried by the 1886 eruption and then subsequently uncovered?
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Kahu
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Sorry Jezzie.......
Unlike Pompeii, the whereabouts of this village were known, as it was a major tourist destination. Getting back to the devastated area was a real job, through thick sticky mud, where all the landmarks had been obliterated.
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So was Te Wairoa buried by the 1886 eruption and then subsequently uncovered?
Short answer - Yes

But after the eruption, the lake almost trebled in size, buried the famous terraces, and buried not only Te Wairoa, but several villages too around the original lake shore, with over 300 fatalities.
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Kahu
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TRAVEL TO TERRACES:
Visitors travelled by steamer to Tauranga, taking a bridle track to Ohinemutu on the shores of Lake Rotorua. A coach trip to Te Wairoa, where tourists stayed at the Rotomahana Hotel.

From Te Wairoa, tourists boarded a whale boat, or smaller waka rowed by the local Maori to Te Ariki about 10 kilometres from Te Wairoa. At Te Ariki, the tourist group walked 3.5 kilometres over the isthmus to Lake Rotomahana, where they were paddled by waka to the terraces.

Many famous people to have visited the terraces were: Sir George Grey, Samuel Cook, Prince Alfred - Duke of Edinburgh, Anthony Trollope and Mark Twain. Soon the beautiful terraces were covered in graffiti. Hundreds of names, dates, addresses and poems, even the name of Sir George Grey, an early Governor of New Zealand, were scribbled on the silica which was covered by a transparent film and indelibly marked.

The Ghost Waka (Canoe)

"He tohu tera ara ka horo katoa enei takiwa"
- "it is a warning sign that all will be overwhelmed."



The mysterious ghost canoe, recognised as a portent of doom, appeared 11 days before the tragic eruption.

THE WAKA:

On 1886 May 31st a party of tourists on Lake Tarawera heading for the Terraces, with the guide Sophia. At first the group was startled by the rapid surges in the water of lake Tarawera this was soon forgotten as the tourists longed to begin the journey and the locals wanted the economical benefits.

The tourists in the boat, and their Maori crew, clearly watched a waka (canoe) moving parallel to them a half mile to the north. The crew of the waka were paddling rapidly towards Mount Tarawera as if in a traditional Maori funerary procession to the sacred burial grounds and paid no attention to the tourist boat.

The tourists did not give the waka a second thought and could not understand why the Maori crew were discussing it with the locals at Ariki - who listened with fear. There was not, and never had been such a waka on Lake Tarawera and all of the Maori knew it.

An interesting link
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Kahu
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View from the saddle over looking Lake Tarawera.

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The pou or tribal area marker, (like BC Canadian totem pole)

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Towards Mt Tarawera.

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One of the many high waterfalls in this volcanic area, this one, close to the Buried Village, in three stages.

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Display map of the area.
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Kahu
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Wairere Falls or Te Wairoa Falls

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Waterfall section

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Stream side scene - Toetoe- related to Pampas Grass, NZ Flax (Phormium tenax), South African Xeias (red flowers) invading the ecosystem.

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A bush trout stream scene.

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One section of hull of a Maori war canoe uncovered from the mud. These canoes are shaped Totara (Red Pine) tree trunks; the sections are tenoned and sewn together with flax and vine bindings. Canoes capable of carrying 150 warriors could be carried in sections over mountainous terrain and reassembled where needed.
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