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Updated: May 12, 2025
There is a piece of flat land round the base of the bluff, and this is all under grass; the half-dozen houses of the citizens, with their gardens and paddocks, being here. But all beyond is bush, with a single road cut through it, that leads up and along the range to Paparoa and Maungaturoto.
When they appear in a district, cattle-farmers have to combine to hunt them down and extirpate them. Once there were some wild cattle in the bush between Te Pahi and Paparoa, on the opposite side of our river. The settlers of Paparoa were hunting them down, and we were warned to look out, for fear the beasts should take to the water.
So we charged gallantly at them in the water, and strove to head them back to the other side, where the Paparoa men were waiting for them. Such guns as we had were brought out, but they were little good, not being rifled, and we had no ball cartridge. Dandy Jack performed prodigies of valour with an old harpoon; and O'Gaygun used his axe with great success.
All along the beach boats lay drawn up, and the number of people walking about made the place seem quite populous. Of course, everybody was there from our own river, and from Paparoa and Matakohe besides. There were people, too, from the Wairoa settlements, from the Oruawharo, even from Maungaturoto and distant Mangawai.
The broad, lake-like expanse of water over which we are moving four miles across from shore to shore parts before Te Pahi. It stretches away to the left in a wide reach, to form the Matakohe, out of which opens the Paparoa, hidden from sight at this point. Before us, bearing to the right, is the Pahi river. It is a vista of woodland scenery, glorious in the rays of the declining sun.
The township bluff hides from us all view of the Paparoa, which lies just behind it. But we have a full prospect of the wide reach of the Matakohe, which has quite a lake-like look. Just within it, on the further shore, are some low mud-banks, partially covered with stunted mangrove.
I must, however, try to convey an idea of its outlines. We are lying in the Arapaoa Firth, at the point where it loses its distinctive name and divides into three heads. These three lesser firths, together with the main creek that flows into each above the point where the tide reaches, are respectively the Pahi, the Paparoa, and the Matakohe.
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