Ruapuke Island, in the eastern approaches to Foveaux Strait, covers about 3,500 acres. It was formerly a local Maori stronghold supporting a population of about 200, whose chief was the famous Tuhawaiki. It was also the site of a mission station established by the Rev. J. F. H. Wöhlers in 1843. The island is of low relief and is swampy in places. There are several small, fresh or brackish lagoons separated from the sea by sand bars. Some forest remains, but most of the island is now either scrub or open land used for sheep grazing. Geologically it is composed of crystalline metamorphic and igneous rocks similar to those at Bluff and on the north-east corner of Stewart Island. The name means “two hills”.

by William Asher Watters, M.SC., PH.D., New Zealand Geological Survey, Lower Hutt.

• Memories of the Life of J. F. H. Wöhlers: Missionary at Ruapuke, New Zealand, Houghton, J. (1895).

Ruapehu, the beautiful maid, was married to Taranaki. One day, while her husband was away hunting, she was wooed and won by Tongariro. When Taranaki returned at the end of the day he surprised the guilty pair. A titanic battle ensued in which Taranaki was defeated. He retreated towards the west coast, carving out the course of the Wanganui River as he went. When he reached the coast he moved northwards to the western extremity of the North Island, where he rested. There his great weight made the shallow depression which afterwards filled with water and became Te Ngaere swamp. Taranaki, or Egmont, as Cook named him, now sits in silence looking towards his wife and his rival. In spite of her infidelity, Ruapehu still loves her husband and sighs occasionally as she remembers him, while the mist, which drifts eastward from his head, is the visible sign of Taranaki's love for her. For his part, Tongariro, who despairs of ever possessing her again, smokes and smoulders with anger. To this day travellers in the Tongariro National Park see the basin called Rua Taranaki, “the Pit of Taranaki”, which lies to the east of the Tama Saddle which was the original home of Taranaki.

The name Ruapehu does not appear to commemorate any event in Maori legend. Broken into its components it means rua (two) and pehu (to explode or make a loud noise). But this method of breaking down Maori place names in order to explain their meaning is far from reliable.

by Bernard John Foster, M.A., Research Officer, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington and Thomas Ludovic Grant-Taylor, M.SC., New Zealand Geological Survey, Lower Hutt.

Geology of the Tongariro Subdivision, Bulletin 40 N.S., Geological Survey Department, Gregg, D. R. (1960).

Because there used to be some doubt as to which of Ruapehu's peaks was the highest, several early explorers claimed to have been first to reach the summit. The position was further complicated because the mountain was sacred to the Maoris and climbers had to conceal the evidence of their attempts from Te Heuheu and the Taupo tribes. In the late 1840s Sir George Grey and the Rev. Richard Taylor climbed some distance up the mountain, and on 30 January 1853 they explored the eastern slopes and appear to have reached the summit icefield. On 12 December 1877 John and Thomas Allison, of Wanganui, climbed to the summit of Te Heuheu Peak (9,040 ft). They were followed, in February 1879, by G. Beetham and J. P. Maxwell, who discovered the crater lake but did not approach closely enough to find that its waters were warm. The first ascent of Paretetaitonga (9,025 ft) was accomplished in 1882 by H. C. Field, a civil engineer from Wanganui. It was left to James Park, C. Dalin, and W. H. Dunnage to ascend Tahurangi (9,175 ft) to the true summit of Ruapehu. On 8 January 1886 this party climbed Girdlestone Peak (8,670 ft) believing that they would then find a quick route to the top of Tahurangi. They were disappointed in this and had to retrace their path with some difficulty before they could make their successful attempt on Tahurangi.

Ruapehu, 9,175 ft, the highest mountain in the North Island, is an active volcano lying at the southern end of the Rotorua-Taupo volcanic district in Tongariro National Park. It appears to have had a long active history, and mud-flow debris from Ruapehu was deposited in each of the last three Pleistocene glaciations. Immediately to the north of Ruapehu, forming part of the same coalescing volcanic mass and aligned along a line striking NNE, are the major volcanoes Ngauruhoe and Tongariro. Other volcanic peaks of lesser altitude are numerous. The broad irregular summit area of Ruapehu includes the prominent points of Paretetaitonga, 9,025 ft in the west; Te Heuheu, 9,040 ft in the north; Cathedral Rocks, 8,150 ft in the north-east; Mitre Peak, 8,450 ft in the south-east; Girdlestone Peak, 8,715 ft in the south; and Ruapehu, 9,175 ft in the south-west. Below and between Paretetaitonga and Ruapehu is a crater lake at 8,375 ft occupying the present crater. The high points mentioned are not separate volcanoes but peaks on an irregular crater rim, with East Crater, West Crater, Girdlestone Crater, and Crater Lake as younger and smaller craters contained within the larger. The rocks of which Ruapehu is built are andesites, mainly labradorite and labradorite pyroxenite andesites, with much glass in the ground mass. The andesites are appreciably more basic and of darker colour than those of the Egmont chain of volcanoes.

Although Ruapehu has frequently erupted steam and ash, and Crater Lake is normally warm and sometimes boiling, the only lava eruption during European times occurred in May and June 1945. During this period ash eruptions reached such a degree of violence that ash falls were reported as far away as Wellington, 145 miles distant.

The largest river rising on Ruapehu is the Whangaehu, but it is not of any considerable size, even when it reaches the coast near Turakina to the south of Wanganui. The Whangaehu drains the eastern side of Crater Lake by slow percolation through and beneath an ice dam. From time to time the dam is breached, and the river's importance is considerable in that it has carried several lahars or mud flows from Mount Ruapehu. Lahars have been recorded on 13 February 1861, 1 May 1889, 10 March 1895, in 1903, on 22 January 1925, and 24 December 1953, wrecking a railway bridge immediately prior to the arrival of the Wellington-Auckland Limited express. The train plunged into the river with the loss of 151 lives. This has been called the Tangiwai Disaster. A flood-warning system has now been erected on the river to prevent further occurrences.

Although from about 3,000 ft and upwards Ruapehu is composed predominantly of lavas and ash, the material composing the surrounding countryside is a mass of unsorted andesitic debris ranging from large boulders many feet across to fine mud. The surface of this material is generally smooth except in the north-west, where there are a large number of conical hills. This debris constitutes the ring plain of Ruapehu and was deposited during the Pleistocene glaciations by gigantic lahars from the mountain. The conical mounds were formed by collection of debris around abnormally large blocks when they settled from the lahars.

Today Mount Ruapehu is probably one of New Zealand's most popular mountain resorts, and tourist facilities range from huts to the excellent tourist hotel, the “Chateau”. Ski tows have been installed, and in season many thousands of visitors are often on the mountain at one time.

The Ruamahanga (catchment area, 1,340 sq. miles) is the most important river in the Wairarapa. Rising in the forested country of the northern central Tararua Range on the eastern slopes of Mount Dundas (4,935 ft), it flows into the open country of the Wairarapa lowlands west of Maurice-ville, passes close to the north-west of Masterton, the principal town of the Wairarapa, and thence southwards on the eastern side of the Wairarapa Plains, where it passes through Lake Wairarapa on its way to Lake Onoke, a beach bar-dammed lagoon on the shore of Palliser Bay.

The major tributaries draining from the forested areas of the eastern Tararua Ranges from north to south are the Waingawa, Waiohine, and Tauhere-nikau. Draining from the largely pasture-covered east coast highlands to the east of the Wairarapa Plains are the Tauweru, Ruakokoputuna, and Tauranganui Rivers.

The estimated minimum flow in 1948 was about 280 cu. ft. per second. Floods of approximately 100,000 cusecs occurred in 1880 and 1897.

The meaning of the Maori name is obscure.

by Thomas Ludovic Grant-Taylor, M.SC., New Zealand Geological Survey, Lower Hutt.

(1869–1937).

Maori prophet.

A new biography of Rua Kenana Hepetipa appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Rua was born in 1869 at Maungapohatu in the Urewera Country. He was the posthumous son of Kenana Tumoana, who was killed at Makaretu in November 1868 while fighting for Te Kooti, and of Ngahiwi Te Rihi. Rua was a member of the Tamakaimoana hapu of the Tuhoe tribe and, although not a chief in his own right, was of high birth and could trace his descent from Potiki and Toroa of the Mataatua canoe.

In 1887 Rua left Maungapohatu to learn farming. He worked on sheep stations in the Gisborne and Bay of Plenty districts and was a member of a shearing gang on the East Coast. During this period he studied the Bible. In 1905 he returned to Maungapohatu where he set himself up as a prophet of the New Testament type. Rua claimed to be the Christ – the son of Jehovah – and said that no one who joined him would die. His followers vested their lands in Rua and he had these surveyed and sold back to them. The settlement was administered by the prophet's own parliament. He also formed a Maori mining company to exploit the mineral resources of the Urewera. At the prophet's command 5 miles of forest were cleared and a prosperous farming community grew up under his leadership. Rua acted as his people's banker and took tithes of all they earned; but in return he gave them a prosperity they had never before known.

Rua built a two-storied, circular temple at Maungapohatu. He grew his hair long and affected a bushy beard in the patriarchal tradition. As his reading of the Bible appeared to prescribe seven wives, Rua kept to this number and immediately replaced any who died or ran away. In all he had 12 wives and over 70 children. From the King-ite tradition he inherited the idea that Maoris possessed a separate nationality, and this, together with the success of his community, aroused the jealousy of local chiefs and incurred the Government's enmity. By 1908 Rua's struggle for power had brought the Tuhoe to the brink of civil war and Sir Joseph Ward intervened to curb the prophet's influence. In 1910 Rua was fined for sly grogging and, in 1915, served a short gaol sentence for a similar offence. On his release he resumed his sly grogging and also advised his people to boycott military service. On 2 April 1916 a large, heavily armed police party arrived at Maungapohatu to arrest him. There are conflicting versions of what took place. Rua refused to submit to arrest, and his supporters fought a brisk half-hour gun battle with the police. In this exchange his son and a Maori bodyguard were killed and two Maoris were wounded. Four constables were also wounded. Rua was taken to Whakatane where, after a trial which lasted 47 days, he was sentenced to one year's imprisonment for resisting the police.

When he returned to the Urewera, Rua found his mana unimpaired. The settlement at Maungapohatu, however, was broken and he moved his followers down river to Matahi. There he lived peacefully until his death on 20 February 1937. He was survived by five wives, nine sons, and 13 daughters. His divinity did not long survive him, however, because he failed to fulfil his promise to rise from the dead. Little now remains to show the glories of Maungapohatu, and his church (Te Wairua Tapu) boasts few followers. The Urewera Country is peaceful, a startling contrast to what it was in the stirring days of the Prophet Rua.

by Bernard John Foster, M.A., Research Officer, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington.

Dominion, 28 Apr 1937, 21 Jul 1951; Poverty Bay Herald, 4, 5 Apr 1916; 24 Feb 1937 (Obit).

On 6 February 1963, the anniversary of her accession to the Throne and also the one hundred and twenty-third anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, Queen Elizabeth II, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, returned to New Zealand. They arrived at the Bay of Islands in the Royal Yacht Britannia, escorted by HMNZS Otago, and on the following day, after attending the Waitangi celebrations, they sailed for Auckland. After a two-day stay at Auckland Britannia sailed with the Royal visitors for Mount Maunganui and thence to Napier for a brief visit to Hawke's Bay. A feature of the stay in Wellington, the next port of call, was the opening of Parliament and a special meeting of the Privy Council. Whilst in Wellington Her Majesty presented a silver chalice and paten to St. Paul's Cathedral – these had been used by her grandparents during their tour in 1901.

From Wellington the Queen and Duke sailed for Nelson, whence the Duke visited the Outward Bound School at Anakiwa before joining Her Majesty at Blenheim. The next stage of the tour lay via Picton to Port Chalmers and Dunedin, and finally to Christchurch. On 18 February the Queen and Duke flew to Canberra to commence their tour of Australia.

Among the notable measures to commemorate this Royal occasion were the establishment of the Queen Elizabeth the Second National Arts Council and the Queen Elizabeth the Second Post-graduate Fellowship which provides an annual fellowship under the administration of the Maori Education Foundation.

Because of ill health, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, was forced at the last moment to cancel her proposed visit to Australia and New Zealand which was planned for early 1964. In November 1965, however, it was announced that the Queen Mother's tour would take place in April-May 1966.

by Judith Sidney Hornabrook, M.A., National Archives, Wellington.

Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, arrived by air at Auckland on 1 February 1958. Three days later she continued her tour, travelling to Kaitaia, Hamilton, Napier, New Plymouth, Palmerston North, and Wellington. Her Royal Highness spent some four days in the capital and then flew to Blenheim and to Dunedin for a further three days. The visit ended with stops at Invercargill and Christchurch before her departure from Harewood Aerodrome for Canberra on 14 February.

Prince Philip returned to New Zealand on a flying visit during the course of his world tour, 1956–57. Arriving by air at Ohakea on 11 December 1956 he travelled to Wellington and, after brief visits to Rotorua, Wairakei, Kawerau, and other places of interest in that area, left for Auckland and Norfolk Island. The stay on Norfolk Island was limited to 15–16 December and the Duke then flew to Christchurch on 16 December to join the royal yacht Britannia bound for the Chatham Islands and thence on to the Antarctic.

In February 1957 the Duke of Edinburgh regained the right to be called Prince. The son of Prince and Princess Andrew of Greece, he had relinquished his title when he became a naturalised British citizen in 1947 and took the surname Mountbatten, his mother's family name. Later in that year he was created Duke of Edinburgh at the time of his marriage to the then Princess Elizabeth.

It was New Zealand's first visit from a reigning monarch when Queen Elizabeth II (1926–) and her husband, Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921–), arrived at Auckland on 23 December 1953 on the Gothic, specially chartered as a Royal yacht for the occasion of an Empire tour. The arrival of this elder daughter of George VI and Queen Elizabeth, who had succeeded her father in 1952, brought a third generation of Royalty to the Dominion.

The Royal couple spent Christmas at Auckland and it was from Government House that the Queen made her Christmas broadcast. The excitement of the occasion and the festive season was marred by the appalling railway accident at Tangiwai on Christmas Eve. While in Auckland the Royal visitors met some survivors of the disaster, and later the Duke broke off his itinerary to attend the State funeral at Wellington of many of the victims.

In each of the four main centres events had a similar pattern. Apart from the usual receptions and ceremonials, there was a command film performance or concert, except in Wellington; a race meeting; and opportunities to inspect local industry or development schemes. A number of special gatherings was addressed by the Duke – in Wellington he spoke before representatives of scientific organisations. Colours were presented to the Royal New Zealand Navy at Devonport and to the Royal New Zealand Air Force at Whenuapai.

Flying to Kaikohe, the Royal party called at Waitangi, Whangarei, and Warkworth. The next part of the tour lay through Pukekohe to Huntly, Hamilton, Te Kuiti, and Waitomo. On the way the Queen was able to meet the Maori “King”, Koroki, at Turangawaewae, a gesture much appreciated. The Queen and Duke then travelled through Te Awamutu and Cambridge, with a stop at the site of the Karapiro hydro-electric project, before passing on to Rotorua which was the scene of a stirring Maori reception on 2 January. For some five days the Royal couple spent a rest period at Moose Lodge on the shores of Lake Rotoiti, and then flew from Rotorua to Gisborne. A journey by road to Napier and Hastings and thence by rail through Palmerston North, Feilding, Marton, Wanganui, and Taranaki, was followed by the flight to Paraparaumu.

Highlights of a stay of six days in Wellington included a special session of Parliament and for this historic occasion Her Majesty wore her coronation gown. It was the first time the sovereign had opened a New Zealand Parliament and, when the Queen was later shown over the House, the first time a reigning monarch had stepped on the floor of a Commonwealth House of Representatives. Her Majesty assented to one Act, the Judicature Act. A Privy Council was also held – it was the first time the monarch had presided over one outside the United Kingdom. (In 1920 at the instigation of the Prince of Wales, himself newly made a Privy Councillor, a meeting had been called in Wellington in order that the Earl of Liverpool, who had recently been called to the Council, could be sworn in.) While in Wellington Her Majesty also laid the foundation stone of the new Anglican cathedral.

Flying to Blenheim and Nelson, the Queen and Duke next visited the West Coast and then proceeded to Christchurch. After a break of a few days at Longbeach, the tour was resumed by road to Timaru and then by rail to Dunedin where the floral decorations were particularly impressive. From Dunedin the Royal party travelled to Invercargill and on 30 January left from Bluff on the Gothic, calling in at Milford Sound before finally leaving the Dominion.