Tēnei te mihi atu ki te whānau whānui o Waitaha, Kāti Māmoe me Ngāi Tahu.
Murihiku rūnanga have completed the monitoring section for the Ngā Kete o te Wānanga research project. Our whānau and research team have now completed visiting traditional sites of Te Ara Koroka (Slipstream/dart pounamu trail).
In the last issue we gave an update of the two hīkoi covering the upper Whakatipu-wai-māori and the upper/middle Waiau area. In early April we completed our final monitoring hīkoi within the lower Waiau/Ōraka-Aparima area. We started at Clifton visiting a cave system which our tūpuna used as a stopover and moved down the Waiau and Orauea rivers to the recently developed Waiau habitat ponds.
The following day we visited Orepuki (Monkey Island) and worked our way around the coast to Wakapatu (Kawhakaputaputa) and back to Aoraki stream at Colac bay. Our final day consisted of us moving around Jacobs River estuary visiting the lower Pourakino River, the estuary itself and the waka landing. We caught tuna in our hīnaki, some bullies and gathered some delicious pātiki. We had a couple of new whānau members join us for this hīkoi and again it was humbling to see the whanaungatanga and mātauranga transferring between the whānau.
Ngā mihi atu ki ngā whānau whānui ki Murihiku mō te tautoko me te āwhina ki te kaupapa o ngā kete o te Wānanga hīkoi ki waenganui o te motu, nā reira, tēnā koutou tēnā koutou tēnā rā tātou katoa.
Whānau on the Orauwea.