Maungakawa Story

We’ve planted 400 trees up here as a school. One of our syndicates is Maungakawa Syndicate and we wanted to be environmental leaders up here. When I walk around here I like to think that the increase in bird life is thanks in some part to our kids.

Some people have been visiting Maungakawa every weekend for 20 years.

We found out that people still use Maungakawa for healing and health reasons. Mostly staying fit but also as a place to relax and do some thinking.

Maungakawa is important to Ngāti Hauā for spiritual cultural and historical reasons. We wanted to understand the reasons for people visiting Maungakawa today.

There were people we met who were interested in the preservation of the native bush and birds on Maungakawa.

People visit Maungakawa because they have never been before and they have been told it’s a peaceful place, with beautiful views.

We recently resurrected the ‘Friends of Sanitorium Hill’ - we feel very passionately about this place and we’ve done lots of the recent replanting up here like the kowhai over there. We feel a bit upset that we don’t know what’s going on with the Treaty Settlement. We’ve had a long investment in this area - well the Friends have - we hope that everything gets looked after"

We met people who had come to Maungakawa because it is a great place to view the land below. They were looking at the progress of the new SH1 road.

People visit Maungakawa to keep fit and healthy.