Signposts - a blog about Te Ara the Encyclopedia of New Zealand

The first arrivals in the New Zealand Company settlements at Wellington, Whanganui, New Plymouth and Nelson in the early 1840s were soon aware of earthquakes. They found them alarming, and started to describe their new home as the Shaky Isles. There were complaints that the New Zealand Company had ignored this distinctive feature of New Zealand life in their glowing publicity about life in a new colony. To start with the earthquakes were simply an odd phenomenon, but on 16 October 1848 a large earthquake shook central New Zealand, causing widespread damage in the town of Wellington.

Cover of The visitation

A recently published book, The visitation: the earthquakes of 1848 and the destruction of Wellington by Rodney Grapes (Victoria University Press, 2011), gives a detailed account of the earthquake and its human impact, based largely on diaries and contemporary accounts.

The 1848 earthquake was the first demonstration to British settlers of the damaging power of earthquakes. Wellington had a population of only about 3,500, but already there were a number of public buildings – churches, a hospital and a gaol. Most of those constructed of brick and mud were damaged, and three people were killed. However, most wooden buildings survived with little damage. The lesson was not lost on the settlers, and is the reason why much of 19th-century Wellington was built of wood.

Not surprisingly, some of the settlers wanted to escape. A week later the sailing ship Subraon set off for Sydney with 60 passengers. But the Subraon didn’t make it out of the harbour, being one of the first wrecks on Barrett Reef. No lives were lost, but over the next few days the passengers struggled back to Wellington. Prominent citizens such as William Fitzherbert (who later became provincial superintendent) were taunted for cowardice in deserting the damaged town.

But Wellington recovered from the earthquake quite rapidly. The British immigrants were not going to be deterred after travelling halfway round the world – and for most there was little to go home to.

The Awatere Fault

Although Wellington was badly damaged, the earthquake was actually centred in the Awatere valley in Marlborough, where few people lived. The visitation explains how the relationship between faults and earthquakes was worked out by geologist Alexander McKay in the 1880s. Although the 1848 rupture along the Awatere Fault is one of the most obvious fault lines in New Zealand, it was not until a century later that there was general acceptance that this was the source of the 1848 earthquake through detailed historical and geological analysis by Grapes, the author of The visitation, and his colleagues.

Plaque unveiled at the opening of Te Araroa

A couple of weeks ago I attended the official opening of Te Araroa – The Long Pathway – a 3,000–kilometre walking trail along the length of New Zealand, from Cape Rēinga to Bluff. After the speeches at Island Bay, close to the mid-point of the trail, Governor General Sir Jerry Mataparae declared it open and led a short walk to the viewing point above Island Bay.

Like all the speakers, Sir Jerry acknowledged the vision and dedication of Geoff Chapple, who has spent the last two decades turning a bold idea into reality.

Geoff Chapple and Sir Jerry Mataparae on the viewpoint above Island Bay

The idea of a track along the length of New Zealand is not new. In the 1950s Sir Alfred Reed walked the length (and breadth) of New Zealand, and it was one of the aims of the short-lived Walkways Commission in the 1970s. But nothing happened until Geoff Chapple wrote an article in the Sunday Star-Times newspaper in 1994 outlining his vision for a national walking trail. To get things moving, Geoff and others formed the Te Araroa Trust, and developed this into a network of regional committees who were able to recruit volunteers who gave time and effort to developing sections of the trail.

Only part of the work was physical. A huge amount of effort went into negotiating access, sorting out legal problems over land ownership, and obtaining agreements to link existing tracks controlled by local authorities and the Department of Conservation. New Zealand walking tracks have been developed piecemeal, and it required a complete change of approach to start linking them together.

In 1998 Geoff walked the whole route to test it, and posted a progress account of his travels on the internet – one of New Zealand’s earliest blogs. Gradually a crazy idea was becoming accepted, and funding followed from a variety of sources. There was never enough money, but there is now a complete, signposted route. Walking the whole trail takes three to four months, but a trickle of walkers (many from overseas) have started tackling the whole route, and numbers are growing all the time.

Te Araroa now has its own website, which includes route maps, and Geoff has compiled a handbook, A walking guide to New Zealand’s long trail, Te Araroa.

Cover of Geoff Chapple’s guidebook

Some parts of the trail are less than ideal. Property negotiation can take years, and is ongoing. In order to get the trail open, the trust board has used temporary road bypasses that connect to the next trailhead. The long-term aim, however, is to have a track that is entirely off-road. So over the next decade it is planned to continually upgrade and improve sections of the route.

Opening the Te Araroa Trail is a huge achievement. We salute Geoff Chapple and everyone who has been involved in its development.

The route of Te Araroa, the long trail

Cover of Travels of Hochstetter and Haast in New Zealand, featuring a group at the White Terraces, Lake Rotomahana

Ferdinand Hochstetter is widely regarded as the father of New Zealand geology. Little was known of New Zealand rocks and minerals before his arrival in December 1858. During an eight-month visit he travelled widely around Auckland and Nelson provinces with his compatriot Julius Haast, recording and interpreting geological features. After his return to Vienna, where he was based, he published books, research papers and maps that provided a foundation for later geological work.

Hochstetter’s travels have been well documented over the last 150 years – indeed, his map of Nelson Province provides the hero image for Te Ara’s entry on geological exploration. But previous accounts have been based almost entirely on material written in English. A new book, Travels of Hochstetter and Haast in New Zealand, 1858–1860, by Mike Johnston and Sascha Nolden (Nikau Press, 2011) greatly expands the picture from sources written in German, many held in Austrian archives, as well as the ongoing correspondence between Hochstetter and Haast. One of the most exciting aspects of the new book is the large number of colour illustrations of watercolour sketches, previously unseen, held with the Hochstetter papers.

Hochstetter published the first New Zealand geological maps, including the southern part of Auckland Province and most of Nelson Province. He also published a detailed map of the Auckland volcanoes, which has provided a record of some of the volcanic cones that have since been quarried away. One of his most valuable maps is the area around Lake Rotomahana, near the Pink and White Terraces which were partly destroyed by the 1886 Tarawera eruption. Hochstetter’s carefully surveyed 1859 map has been a key piece of information in recent efforts to relocate the terraces

Hochstetter’s map of Lake Rotomahana, showing the location of the Pink and White Terraces in 1859

As well as geology, Hochstetter had a broad interest in natural science and ethnology, and his writings provide a record of the parts of New Zealand he visited in 1858 and 1859. He assembled the first complete skeleton of a moa from a cave in Golden Bay, and he is commemorated by Hochstetter’s frog as well as many place names. 150 years after his visit it is satisfying to have a more comprehensive account of his travels and his subsequent contribution to New Zealand science.

It is interesting that Hochstetter and Haast are included in Te Ara entries for Germans and Austrians. They both came from states that were later included in Germany, but Hochstetter spent most of his life in Vienna. Both Hochstetter and Haast were awarded hereditary knighthoods by Emperor Franz Josef of Austria, which allowed them to prefix their surname ‘von’.

In a long and active career, William Colenso (1811–99) was a printer, missionary, explorer, politician and botanist. Always argumentative and outspoken, Colenso was often in the news. A notice close to his grave summarises him as a ‘rebel churchman and radical thinker’ as well as ‘Napier’s leading eccentric’.

William Colenso's headstone, Napier

Unfortunately, the colourful aspects of Colenso’s career have tended to overshadow his substantial achievements. I want to draw attention to his scientific career. He made important contributions to natural science and ethnology in New Zealand, but these have been overlooked or downplayed by most who have written about him. They get only passing mention in his entry in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, which fails to mention that he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London (FRS) in 1886 – superior to a knighthood in the eyes of most scientists. To achieve this distinction he was nominated by the three other local Fellows, Julius Haast, James Hector and Walter Buller, and supported by Joseph Hooker, director of Kew Gardens and a former president of the Royal Society. Colenso’s achievement is all the more remarkable because he spent the later part of his life in Napier, a small provincial town lacking a scientific library, equipment, or other professional scientists to discuss ideas with. He regularly presented the results of his researches to the Hawke’s Bay Philosophical Institute.

William Colenso arrived in the Bay of Islands in 1834 to work as a printer for the Anglican Church Missionary Society. Joseph Hooker visited the area in 1841, and spent time there exploring and collecting plants with Colenso. This was the beginning of a friendship and correspondence that lasted for almost 60 years until Colenso’s death in 1899. Hooker helped Colenso obtain a microscope in 1885 – a greatly treasured instrument which enabled him to examine plants in fine detail. The recent publication of Colenso’s collections, which includes transcriptions of Colenso’s letters, provides new insights into the extent of Colenso’s botanical work.

Through the 1840s and 1850s Colenso collected plants for Hooker as he travelled around the North Island, and forwarded them to England to be described. He gradually developed confidence, and started to publish his own descriptions of plants and animals in the Transactions of the New Zealand Institute. Colenso published 76 papers, mainly on plants and animals, but also recording observations of Māori tribes he had visited. Now that the Transactions are available online, Colenso’s considerable scientific contribution is readily available. All his scientific work was unpaid and done in his spare time.

A drawing of a huia with a curiously deformed beak, from one of Colenso's papers

Colenso’s knowledge was acknowledged in New Zealand’s small 19th-century scientific community. James Hector wanted to prepare a series of essays on scientific topics for the 1865 Dunedin exhibition, and he was advised to approach Colenso. Colenso’s first contribution was an essay on the botany of the North Island. Subsequently Hector asked him to write an ethnological essay on Māori culture. Colenso jumped at the chance to distil his experience of living and working with Māori for the preceding 30 years, and produced ‘On the Māori races of New Zealand‘. To our eyes the language is rather patronising, but it was the most authoritative account of Māori life and customs to that time.

The Colenso Society publishes a monthly electronic newsletter, which contains much new information about William Colenso and his times. To celebrate the bicentenary of Colenso’s birth, a week of celebrations is planned on 9–13 November 2011 in Napier, including a two-day academic conference. I hope that this will include recognition of his scientific achievements.

Tarawera erupting in 1886

125 years ago, on 10 June 1886, Mt Tarawera erupted without warning. Craters vented fountains of glowing scoria, and a 17-kilometre rift spewed steam, ash and mud over the surrounding area. Nearby settlements were destroyed or buried by hot mud, and about 120 people perished.

A major tourist attraction, the Pink and White Terraces, was one of the casualties of the eruption. The area around the terraces had become a deep crater, which filled with water within a few months to form the modern Lake Rotomahana.

There has long been speculation about whether any part of the terraces survived, but it had been impossible to check deep in the lake. Early this year a joint US–New Zealand team explored the bed of Lake Rotomahana using a small, unmanned submarine. In February they announced that they had found part of the Pink Terraces, but it was then believed that the White Terraces had been destroyed.

However, on the 125th anniversary of the Tarawera eruption, GNS scientist Cornel de Ronde was delighted to announce that detailed analysis of the underwater sonar records had detected hard, crescent-shaped structures on the lake bed at the site of the White Terraces at a depth of about 60 metres. Unfortunately there are no underwater photographs, but there is little doubt that this discovery will lead to renewed exploration of the floor of Lake Rotomahana.

You can see an illustrated account of the investigations on Julian’s Blog, and on YouTube you can watch an excellent video clip: White Terraces rediscovered.

The discovery has special significance for the Tūhourangi people, a sub-tribe of Te Arawa) whose ancestors used to guide visitors around the Pink and White Terraces. Many members of the tribe were killed during the Tarawera eruption, and those who survived settled at Whakarewarewa. The devastated land was later taken over by the Crown, and is now the subject of a claim before the Waitangi Tribunal.