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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 12, Issue 6 (September 1, 1937.)

variety in brief

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variety in brief

Lake Manapouri, Or Moturau.

In Mr. Ernest E. Bush's excellent article on the Southern Lakes in last month's “Railways Magazine,” a reference (p. 45) to my writings on Lake Manapouri calls for a slight correction. I did not give “Lake of a Hundred Islands” as the translation of the name Manapouri. The ancient and original name of the Lake, as I have frequently explained, was Moturau, which I translated as above (motu = island; rau = a hundred, or many). Manapouri, of course, does not bear any such interpretation.

When I obtained the original name from the old men of blended Ngai-Tahu and Ngati-Mamoe in Southland in 1903, they explained that Manapouri was a pakeha corruption of Manawapopore, meaning the violent throbbing of the heart, as after great exertion or under intense emotion. Moreover, the name, they said, did not rightly belong to the lake at all, it was mistakenly transferred to Moturau by an early surveyor from the North Mavora Lake, lying in the mountains between Lakes Wakatipu and Te Anau. Manawa-popore was in the first place the name of an ancestor, and was given to that hill-girt lake in ancient times. Some of the pioneer surveyors misunderstood the Maoris they questioned.

Many of the names of lakes and mountains in the South Island were really personal names in the beginning, and are not descriptive of the places. Moturau is one of the exceptions. It should be kept in mind as a supplementary name to Manapouri, which for all its garbled construction is a name of music and beauty, perhaps the most euphonious lake name in New Zealand.

I gave up the effort to tally the islands in Manapouri, but I believe the number is thirty-four, besides half-a-dozen which are really only rocks.

* * *

As Picture Collectors See It.

The change-over at Wellington terminal of the N.Z.R. will be a milestone to railway picture collectors everywhere. For months past overseas collectors have bombarded their fellow collectors in this Dominion for pictures of the old and the new.

Local enthusiasts will complete their sets of construction photos, and mount them.

Considered as one unit the station, yard and deviation has offered the cameraman a wider scope then any New Zealand undertaking has done before. There was the old layout—two stations with a past, and a cluttered-up yard. Our next interest was the Tawa Flat tunnel, a work easily demonstrated pictorially. Then came the big steel bridges, double tracks and overhead equipment. Things started looking like a Union terminal job at an American metropolis. On top of that came a series of dramatic changes in track layout—all completed at the week-ends. Now we just need electrics and the web of steel.

Old prints will have more value. We will prize those pictures of express trains “doubleheading up the bank” out of Thorndon because they cannot be repeated. And many other photos, will benefit in historic value.

Fans at the other end of the Dominion will rely upon fellow collectors to supply prints. We have developed an organisation that works well. Real railway hobbyists are as rare in New Zealand as flies in winter time and they are widely scattered. But when a good photo, of something new comes along its existence is quickly known to other collectors, and a long series of exchanges ensues.

I was the only New Zealand collector in a position to supply photos, of rail-car trials on the Wairarapa line in August, 1936, and as a result I have supplied ninety prints to addresses scattered all over the globe.

The pictures that come back in exchange convince me that our old N.Z.R. is not behind the bunch even if our geography does make things awkward. My railway friends look the foreign pictures over and glance at the accompanying data. They usually say, “Not much different from our own, you know.” …“We have something as good as that.” … “Not necessary here.”

So collectors thank the Department for a long series of modern photographic subjects and also for the ready assistance that any true student enthusiast always gets.—R.J.C.