Place Names Along the Way.

Enquiries are often made as to the origin and meaning of some of these railway station names.

Pae-Kakariki means “Perch for a parrakeet”; it refers to the Maori bird-snaring days, and also to the practice of making the little parrakeet a pet; it could be taught to talk.

Parapara-umu means “Scrapings of the earth-ovens.” The story is that a war-party from the north, after capturing a village here and finding that most of the people had fled to the ranges, searched for food, but found, to their annoyance, only a few scraps in the ovens, dropped there when the occupants of the place had had their morning meal.

Waikanae means “Mullet River.”

Otaki preserves a memory of the somewhat trivial fact that here the aforesaid Hau carried his walking-staff at the trail, as a Maori orator sometimes does in marching up and down before his audience.