The well-preserved earthworks of the Rauporoa pa, the Ngati-Pukeko village and fort besieged by Te Kooti's force in March, 1869, stand on an alluvial plain thickly dotted with cabbage-trees (ti or whanake) of great size. The redoubt is surrounded by Maori and pakeha cultivations; the native villages of the Poroporo and Rewatu are a short distance away, and the Whakatane flows past its rear beneath masses of weeping willows. Within rifle shot page 18 page 19 on the opposite or eastern side of the river are the grass-grown ruins of the Poronu redoubt and the house-site and the spillway of the water-mill, made memorable by the Frenchman Jean Guerren's heroic defence. The Rauporoa pa is a rectangular work consisting of an earth parapet and a surrounding trench; the height of the scarp above the bottom of the ditch is still seven to eight feet, and inside the work is four or five feet high; the ditch is four feet wide and about the same depth. The dimensions of the pa are about 120 yards in length (parallel with the course of the Whakatane River, immediately under its rear wall) and 55 yards in width. There are two large salients, which form flanking bastions against enfilading fire, one with 15 yards front on the western flank to the south of the main gateway; the other is an angle near the river. Another flanking work, a bastion eight yards on its longest alignment, is constructed at the opposite (or south) end of the eastern face, and there is a smaller salient near one of the gateways facing the river.