KiEK. — On the Botany of the East Cape District. 513 



fortifications. In many of the trenches pohutukawas a foot or 

 more in diameter are now growing. Two small rivers are 

 passed before the Raukokore is reached ; the crossing here 

 may or may not be troublesome. After passing Raukokore, 

 Oreti Point is reached, flat, open, and occupied by a farm. 

 From Oreti there is a fairly good track to the Whangaparaoa 

 River, which enters the sea near Cape Runaway. Here is the 

 place to leave the coast, and the river-bed is followed for some 

 little distance, until, rising at first gradually and then so 

 rapidly that the method of progress is almost climbing, the 

 traveller stands on the clay hills that separate the waters of 

 the Bay of Plenty from those of Hicks Bay. The vegeta- 

 tion is striking — beech, tanekaha, toro, and Dracophyllum 

 strictum. 



" Looking to the right is seen perhaps the most extended 

 stretch of hill-country in the whole of New Zealand. Rounded 

 hills, bush-covered for the most part, extend as far as one can 

 see. Among them, on the right, rises Mount Hardy (Rangi- 

 poua), 1,332ft., and on the left Hikurangi and his attendant 

 mountains. 



" Leaving the ridge, the track leads to the waters of the 

 Wharekahika River, or Wai-kohu, the bed of which is the 

 road for the next fourteen miles. Men that have had patience 

 to count say that there are 117 crossings to be made ; but that is 

 a matter of exigency. At any rate, there are crossings enough 

 to make the average traveller very tired of river work. From 

 Hicks Bay a bridle-track leads over high hills to Kawakawa 

 Beach (of heavy shingle), passing the Waerenga and the 

 Karakatawhero Rivers. The native settlement of Te Arawa 

 is at the foot of very high limestone cliffs. Here, in the 

 school-grounds, is probably what is the largest pohutukawa- 

 tree in New Zealand. It is known as Te Waha-o-Rerekohu 

 (" the mouth of Rerekohu"). Rerekohu, an ancestor of the 

 present chief, Te Hatiwira Houkamau, planted this tree. Six 

 generations have intervened between Rerekohu and Te Hati- 

 wira. Leaving Te Arawa, the Awatere River, well deserving 

 its name, is crossed. From this point there is a land road, 

 passable in summer, to Wai-o-matatini, on the Waiapu River. 

 The coastal track is on the beach until the East Cape is 

 passed. Then the great Wakori Bluff has to be climbed, and 

 at length the track reaches the shingle beach at the mouth of 

 the Waiapu. The crossing of the Waiapu may be a simple 

 matter, or it may take a man and his horse all their time to 

 cheat the coroner here. A few miles inland two rivers, the 

 Mata and the Tapuwaeroa, unite to form the Waiapu ; they 

 drain the two sides of the Hikurangi mass. The great eastern 

 branch of the southern mountain-range, passing into the North 

 Island as the Rimutakas, and known as it runs northward 

 33 



