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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 6, Issue 6 (December 1, 1931)

Our Great Fishing River

Our Great Fishing River.

The fame of the Tongariro River is world-wide. Anglers come from England, America, India and elsewhere, attracted by the reports of the big trout and the fine sport catching them in that swift stream of the mountains and the plain. Tongariro is synonymous with good fishing, as all know, from Royalty down. It is a good name and historic withal, and is particularly apropos because it identifies with the Tongariro National Park the river which has its sources in the high places of that mountain sanctuary. But there is an effort in some quarters to displace the ancient name by, or at anyrate make it only of secondary importance to, the term “Upper Waikato.” This name is most misleading, if applied to the Tongariro. It is the old and generally used term describing that section of the Waikato River from its source in Lake Taupo to the head of navigation at Cambridge. That is the sense in which “Upper Waikato” is used by nearly everyone, and certainly by evenyone in the Waikato district who knows anything of the geography of his land.

So, naturally, there is strong opposition to this attempt to oust Tongariro from its rightful position. One of the Ruapehu sources of the river is called the Waikato, but it is an unwarrantable liberty with geographical facts to make this the name of the whole stream down to its mouth in the lake. The Maoris call the river the Tongariro be-cause it draws its waters from the Tongariro mountain group, which in native usage includes Ruapehu as well. The largest river-sources are those which come from Tongariro-Ngauruhoe range and the lava plains at its base. Tongariro is the great name of the territory from the days of old, so Tongariro may the name of our wonderful stream of pumiceland and volcanoland long remain.