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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 11, Issue 12 (March 1, 1937)

Little Drowned Islands

Little Drowned Islands.

Out in Rotorua Lake in the shallow bay on the eastern side of Sulphur Point (Motu-tara) there is a green-tufted islet peeping from the surface of the water a few hundred yards from the shore. That tiny isle is all that remains to mark the site of a sunken pa called Timanga. It was an island village, surrounded by a palisade, in the olden times, but the land subsided. Nearby is another nearly submerged islet called Motu-tere (“Floating Island”). Like Timanga it subsided during the last half-century or so, and was denuded until now it is a patch of pumice sand, with a few scrubby bushes of manuka, elevated only a foot or two above the level of the lake. Timanga belonged to the clan Ngati-Korouateka. Motu-tere, with its thickets of manuka, was a secure hiding-place for its owners. The last man who lived there was the chief, Te Pukuatua; he dwelt in a little whará on the bushy islet during the days of the Maori wars, 1864–70.

Motu-Tara Point was so named because there was an islet there frequented by the little grey lake gull, the tara-punga.