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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 12, Issue 7 (October 1, 1937.)

[section]

Mr. George Crosswell, of Opotiki, whose marvellous escape from the Hauhaus at Opepe is narrated in this story.

Mr. George Crosswell, of Opotiki, whose marvellous escape from the Hauhaus at Opepe is narrated in this story.

On that desolation of scrubgrown pumice land between Taupo and the eastern ranges, where the motorist speeds up to get over the uninteresting plain as quickly as possible, there is a place about which a book could be written, the site of Opepe stockade. At the beginning of the Seventies this Armed. Constabulary post was the advanced field post on the Kaingaroa Plain, a strategic position guarding the tracks to Napier and along the Rangitaiki valley. Later Taupo became the headquarters of the frontier patrol. But before the stockade was built by the bushmen and carbineers of the Constabulary tragic history was made at Opepe, June 7th, 1869.

The story of the surprise attack on a party of cavalrymen encamped there has often been described as a “massacre.” That error has been corrected, at any rate in the official and authoritative descriptions. It was really a skilful little military operation on the part of the Hauhaus, the advance party of Te Kooti's force marching from the Urewera Country to Taupo and Waikato. They cut off a careless detachment of the Bay of Plenty Cavalry, killed nine out of the fourteen, and captured all the arms and horses. Had the Government forces scored such a success it certainly would not have been described as a massacre. “Brilliant Action at Opepe” would have made a newspaper thriller of the moment. It was really a minor war incident in itself, but the moral effect was considerable, for it greatly heartened the sturdy rebels.