TRY THE TALL ROCK.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 31, 7 February 1928, Page 6

TRY THE TALL ROCK.

Motorists travelling to Taupo bv the Arapirni and Atiamuri route know the lofty volcanic "plug" of long-solidified lava called Pohaturoa, which rises in a tremendous steep above the Waikato's banks near to Atiamuri Bridge. Often the question is asked, can that huge rock be climbed? It presents an apparently unscalable face on every side, but such a formidable appearance should only whet the climbing appetite of some of our young alpinists. That apparently insurmountable pillar of rhyolite—its name means '"Lofty Rock"—rising live hundred feet or so above the level of the Waikato was an ancient fortress of the Maori The warrior of old fixed his stronghold and his refuge on some queer places, but I don't think I ha-ve ever seen a more secure eyrie of retreat than this great rock. The lack of water was the fatal weakness of many hill forts, but on Pohaturoa there was a permanent spring of water near the very top of the almost vertical height. This most precious possession made the rock a practically impregnable hold. A man of the Ngati-Raukawa tribe, the last Maori owners of Pohaturoa, told me that he had climbed to the top of the rock more than once in the days of his youth, but that the old track had been broken away and it was now probably impossible to scale it. He told me a good deal about its traditional history. To summarise, it was conquered by Ngati-Whaita (a clan lialf-Ngati-Raukawa and half-Arawa) from the ancient aboriginal people called Ngati-Kahupuugapunga, about three centuries ago, as the result of a battle on the plain at Ongaroto in which the original holders of the district were defeated and slaughtered. Then Ngati-Whaita occupied the pa on the rock top and they were beseiged there two hundred years ago by a Waikato war party. The siege lasted a long time, but the invaders did not succeed in starving the garrison out. The defenders had laid in very large stores of preserved birds ("manu-huahua") from the forests on the Whakamaru Range, and they had also a sufficiency of kumara and fern root and the puna of water did not fail them. So Waikato at last abandoned the siege and went home. Their attempts to take it by assault were not a success, for Ngati-AV haita simply rolled rocks down on them. My Maori informant reckons the area of the flat hill top at about three-quarters of an acre. When he was last on the summit the sites of huts were traceable; there was an excavation, denoting that a large wharepuni stood there. For about half-way up the hill there is sloping ground, the talus formed by the gradual wasting down of the upper parts, but the upper part is as near vertical as may be in most places. On some parts it seems to overhang. The Maoris of long ago had hacked rough steps in places and also used ladders of a sort, small trees, with footholds—toeholds would be sufficient—chopped here and there between the branch forks. These notched poles were drawn up into the pa when an enemy approached. It challenges the imagination, that tall rock on Waikatoside. Can it be scaled by the pakeha? Dangerous, perhaps, but so is crossing Queen Street. And perhaps it has been climbed this summer. jq