Te Aroha Mineral Springs: The Discoverers.

The first mention we have on record of the health-giving waters for which Te Aroha has attained fame as a spa, goes back to the year 1849, when Sir George Grey, then Governor of the colony, made a journey overland from Auckland to Taranaki by way of this Waihou Valley, Rotorua and Taupo.

An account of the tour was written by Mr. G. S. Cooper, the Governor's Assistant Private Secretary, and this, with a version in Maori by Pirikawau, a native interpreter, who accompanied the party, was published in 1851, in a little book (“Journal of an Expedition Overland,” etc.), which is now one of the rare treasures of New Zealand libraries.

This is an entry in Mr. Cooper's diary narrative, under date December 12, 1849. The party was then camped on the Waihou banks, a short distance above the present town of Te Aroha:—

“It was raining this morning harder than ever, and continued to do so without page 28 intermission throughout the day, so as to preclude the possibility of our proceeding on our journey…. We went about two miles down the river to see a spring called Te Korokoro o Hura (‘Hura's Throat'). It is situated at the foot of Mt. Te Aroha, on the eastern bank of the river. On approaching it, Whakareho, who was our guide, instructed me in a native ceremony for strangers approaching a boiling spring. It consists in puiling up some fern or any other weed which may be at hand, and throwing it into the spring, at the same time repeating the words of a Karakia:

‘Ka u ki Matanuku,
Ka u ki Matarangi,
Ka u ki tenei whenua,
Hei whenua;
Hei kai mau te ate o tauhou.'
‘The following is the translation:
”‘I arrive where an unknown earth is under my feet,
I arrive where a new sky is above me,
I arrive at this land,
A resting place for me;
O Spirit of the Earth, the stranger humbly offers his heart as food for thee.'

“The above ceremony, which is called ‘Tupuna Whenua,’ is used by persons on their first arrival at a strange place, for the purpose of appeasing the spirit of the earth, who would otherwise be angry at their intrusion.

“On examining the spring we found that the water was not hot, and could hardly be called tepid, although it was not quite cold. We found a small quantity of sulphurous deposit in the mud, through which its water wells up.”

That unfragrant Throat of Hura is today the famous mineral-water of Te Aroha, which thousands of visitors sip for their stomachs’ sake and out of curiosity. The bathing waters Grey's party did not see or sample; there was not much inducement, evidently, to go exploring at the flood-sodden base of the mountain.