Waiau-Toa & Waiau Uwha

Early Māori named the Waiau-Toa ("fast water, male") and the Waiau Uwha ("fast water, feminine"). Both awa run swift, constant and often shallow, with few slow-moving pools or lakes along their routes.

The legend of Tapuae-O-Uenuku

The mountain Tapuae-O-Uenuku, east of Rangitahi / Lake Tennyson, is named after Tapuaenuku, a member of the early exploratory waka Arai-te-uru, who reached the east coast of Te Waipounamu around the end of the 13th century. When Tapuaenuku watched a spring flood fill Rangitahi and spill into the Waiau-Toa, he was reminded of the tears his wife had wept at his departure, and his own tears flowed too. Symbolically he wedded the two rivers together — and though they spend most of the year apart, when the spring snows thaw they come together as one at their headwaters around Rangitahi.

There are two known translations of the name. Originally for Tapuaenuku of the Arai-te-uru, it is now commonly known by its Ngāi Tahu name Tapuae-O-Uenuku — "the sacred footsteps of Uenuku" (the rainbow goddess). Captain Cook's voyages between 1769 and 1779 gave the mountain the name Mt Odin, though that never stuck; it was the crew's nickname, "the Watcher," that endures, owing to the peak's help as a visual aid while mapping the country.

The English name — Clarence

The name Clarence was given in 1839, after King William IV, who was Duke of Clarence before becoming King in 1830. King for only seven years, William IV still oversaw the reform of the Poor Law, the abolition of slavery across the British Empire, and new protections for child labourers at the dawn of the Victorian era. Before becoming king he had at least ten children with the actress Dorothea Jordan, though, born out of wedlock, they had no claim to the throne. He inherited the crown at 64, and on his death in 1837 with no legitimate heir, the throne passed to his niece Victoria, who reigned for 63 years.

Trade routes & pounamu

Pre-European trade routes between the island's east and west coasts passed through the top of the Waiau-Toa and Waiau Uwha, carrying the most valuable tool of pre-European Aotearoa: pounamu (greenstone). Found only in the island's south-western rivers and coastline, iwi sought the stone for hundreds of years. By trade or war these high subalpine passes were hard and dangerous; before the Ngāi Tahu conquests around 1650 it is thought the iwi Taumata-Kokiri, from Nelson, controlled much of these headwaters. The large, hard-to-access gorges of the middle and lower river mean little pre-European history survives until closer to the coast.

The high-country stations

St James Station

On the western side of the river, St James is a large historic high-country run, purchased by the Crown in 2008 and now managed by DOC. Some 80,000 hectares of regenerating native bush, subalpine high country and alpine environments offer hunting, tramping, kayaking, rafting, skiing and mountain biking. The constant battle with introduced pests, both flora and fauna, has run for over a century and will continue for the foreseeable future.

Molesworth Station

Molesworth begins on the eastern side of the river — the start of around 185,000 hectares of Crown-owned high country flanking the left bank for nearly 100 km. The present station was formed in 1949 when St Helens and Tarndale were deemed untenable; two world wars had left the country short of manpower, allowing pests (predominantly rabbits) to flourish. Years of burning, over-grazing, drought and rabbits steadily reduced Molesworth to a place almost devoid of grazing flora and endemic species.

With sheep removed and rabbit numbers better controlled through the mid-century, farming slowly became more tenable. DOC has run the farm since 2005, still carrying a large herd of cattle — around 8,000 head — through its heart and southern end. A more environmental approach hints at a slow return toward former glory. Managers Bill Chisholm (1942–1978), Don and Anna Reid (through to 2001) and Jim Ward all worked hard to make the farm viable, and in many cases succeeded. It still carries the scars of its past, with a hard future ahead: the current battle is with wilding pines, the next thing pushing this arid country to its limits. Long-time manager Jim Ward recently resigned, stating that not enough is being done to combat the problem.

Roads, passes & cob cottages

Jacks and Jollies passes carry the main south line — power from the southern lakes' scheme — running north through Rainbow Station to Cable Bay and through Molesworth to the Marlborough Sounds. The prominent peak Maukuratawhai (1615 m) lies north of Jacks Pass. Bush Gully holds an old homestead and yards, the southern base of Molesworth's operations. The Molesworth Road runs from Hanmer to Blenheim through the heart of the station — a historic stock route holding some of the country's oldest cob buildings: the Acheron Accommodation House (1862) and Molesworth Homestead (1866).

Quail Flat & the Clock Face Cup

Quail Flat is a large historic farm site on the true right, with a working woolshed and shearers' quarters used by Muzzle Station, who lease farming rights on the Clarence Reserve. It was run as its own farm until the early '90s, when lease-holder Roy Cameron was tragically killed in a helicopter crash on the property. A historic cob cottage and tack sheds remain, with good information boards on this rugged outpost. Opposite the campsite is the Clock Face (1091 m) — unremarkable but for the Clock Face Cup, a race from the cob cottage to the top and back, the record a scarcely believable 49 minutes, set in the early '90s.

Muzzle Station

Muzzle Station's homestead sits in poplar trees on the northern bank. Originally the Bluff Station homestead, it was bought in the '80s by the Nimmo family; with their lease on the Clarence Reserve, the Muzzle farms around 16,000 hectares. Granted permission to run sheep again in the late '80s — despite the Land Settlement Board's wariness after past over-grazing in Marlborough — they now run a Merino flock (selling to Icebreaker and others), some 5,000 sheep and 2,000 cattle. The book Life on Muzzle, by Fiona Redfern (née Nimmo), showcases the farm and its history, aviation and isolation, and many good yarns. Aviation has been integral here since the 1960s; the Muzzle airstrip, above the river on the true left, makes this remote country viable.

The lower stations

Toward the coast the farms grow smaller, though not small. From Boundary Stream, the Shades, Ballyams, Ngaio Downs, Parikawa, Silver Springs, Imphal, Woodbank and Matariki line the eastern bank — all part of the large Woodbank pastoral run taken up in 1853, since broken into smaller holdings, with many families still involved today. On the true right, Waiau Toa Station finishes at the McLean Stream before the subdivided Glen Alton, Middle Hill, Waipapa and Merriburn. Waipapa was the original lease, started in 1852. Up the Ouse sits Coverham homestead, about an hour inland, still home to full-time shepherds and apiarists.

Millions of years, written in the walls

For the first 100 km or so, this arid landscape shows off millions of years of uplift. Below the Chute, the dormant Tinline Fault crosses the river: striped stratification of greywacke embedded with black mudstone is pushed strikingly to the surface. Each layer represents an underwater landslide — the darker mudstone being the slow-settling mud left in its wake — formed between 65 and 150 million years ago.

Faults large and small

Between the Gore and the Fell lies the dormant Clarence Fault, running through and along the river. Made obvious by heavy erosion, these large faults splinter off the great Alpine Fault — the meeting of the Pacific and Australian plates. The 2016 Kaikōura earthquake was so complex that scientists still study it today, having ruptured multiple faults at once.

Volcanic rock, limestone & concretions

A large band of volcanic rock erodes above the river opposite the Bluff — gridiron volcanic rock laid down 90–100 million years ago on the ocean floor — the same band found upstream at the Fell. Above it begins the Bluff sandstone and a steady increase of limestone. Near the Dubious and Fidget you'll notice rounded concretions, large and small. In the style of the more famous Moeraki boulders, they form in situ, often starting with a small organism caught in mud; carbonate minerals gather around it, hardening over time into rock harder than the surrounding mudstone, so that when the mudstone erodes away these odd round features are left behind.

Dorite from the high peaks

Many streams draining Tapuae-O-Uenuku and Mt Alarm carry dorite — a sometimes-striped rock of light, quartz-rich grey against near-black sparkling sections of feldspar, biotite and hornblende. These formed over the last 100 million years, when the mountain summits were volcanic magma chambers more than 3 km below sea level, slowly cooling before being uplifted and eroded.

The Mead stream & the day the dinosaurs died

The Mead stream holds the Iridium layer — a one-inch band of rock settled 65 million years ago after a meteor struck off eastern Mexico. The impact killed over 90 percent of living things and ended the dinosaur era: the KT (K-Pg) boundary, the close of the Cretaceous and start of the Paleogene. Iridium is extremely rare on Earth but common in asteroids; though the layer covers the whole planet it is very hard to find, which is why geologists have spent years up the Mead studying rock that to most of us would look entirely benign. From here you may find grey-and-white striped stones — white being calcium-rich limestone laid down by the extinction, grey being silica-rich chert that filled the ocean floor for the next million years. A changing of time, held in a single rock on the riverbed.

The 2016 Kaikōura earthquake

The entrance to the third gorge, the Sawtooth, is marked by a large slip on river right — the slip that dammed the river in the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake. A simple Grade II rapid is all that's left, though the rocks are sharp. Downstream, where the river turns sharply south below Matai Flat, the Kekerengu Fault — created in 2016 — can be seen rupturing the coastal limestone upward and pushing the river right. Above Waiau Toa homestead the Papatea Fault strikes out of the hills toward the coast; in places uplift of well over 10 m appeared, destroying homes and farmland, wrecking the valley road bridge, and pushing the river east nearly a kilometre — washing some 60 hectares of Woodbank Station into the sea. Where the Miller and Wharekiri streams enter, the fault crosses the river again, carving the "new gorge" out of soft uplifted greywacke.

The river, section by section

A traveller's guide from the Acheron confluence to the sea. Tap a stretch to open it.

Wildlife & forest

Birds of the braided river

The wide braids and gravel banks give rise to specialist birds, many endemic to these systems: the black-fronted tern (tarapiroe), banded dotterel (pohowera), southern black-backed gull (karoro), pied stilt (poaka), black-billed gull (tarapuka) and South Island pied oystercatcher (tōrea). Many rely on the braids for nesting — barely visible scrapes in the gravel with well-camouflaged eggs — and most can be seen along the river to the coast between August and February. Constant trapping is required to protect them from cats, stoats and hedgehogs. In the gorges you'll often see the black shag (kawau pū) nesting on the cliffs and the kārearea / New Zealand falcon scanning the open land.

Hutton's shearwater

The Clarence Reserve — Ka Whata Tu o Rakihouia, "the feeding grounds of Rakihouia" — is named for the Ngāi Tahu chief Rakihouia, whose people trekked high into the Seaward Kaikōura range each year to gather juvenile Hutton's shearwater (tītī). These small seabirds spend most of their lives at sea but nest at up to 1100 m on the banks of Tarahaka, among the highest-nesting seabirds in the world.

The great podocarp forest

Toward Matai Flat stand the last great podocarps — predominantly tōtara (Podocarpus totara) and mātai (Prumnopitys taxifolia) — showing a slow return to the forest that once ruled the South Island's east coast. At Matai Flat itself, the largest stand, you'll also find kahikatea, red beech and mountain beech, some trees pushing 1,000 years old in the well-draining alluvial soil. Saved from logging in the late 1980s and placed into DOC's hands, the stand is far from pristine: its undergrowth is constantly grazed by deer, pigs and goats, and ongoing control is needed for the native vegetation to regenerate.

Riverbank & river mouth

Along the banks, kānuka stabilises the gravels and spiky matagouri shelters native birds, with tussock and small pockets of beech forest in the sheltered gorges. At the river mouth the lagoon holds three shags — pied (kāruhiruhi), spotted (pārekareka) and little (kawaupaka) — alongside royal spoonbills (kōtuku ngutupapa) and white-fronted terns (tara).

People & history

The earliest people

In pre-European times, the lower Clarence valley was one of the most populated areas of Te Waipounamu. The earliest known people were Waitaha — both a tribal name for those descending from the rangatira Rākaihautū, and a general name for all who occupied Te Waipounamu before the arrival of Ngāti Māmoe from the east coast of Te Ika a Māui. The best historical account of Māori occupation of the Kaikōura coast comes from Hariata Beaton, a noted wahine rangatira from Ōaro. A famous Ngāti Māmoe pā stands on the south side of the Waiau-Toa, though the area was very likely occupied long before their arrival.

Mahinga kai & the gardens

Historically the Waiau-Toa was famous for mahinga kai ("to work the food"). In the Ngāi Tahu evidence to the Waitangi Tribunal, foods gathered here included birds such as kererū, weka, kūkū, kākā, kiwi, tūī, pāteke, pārera and pūtakitaki; plants such as harakeke, raupō, taramea, kiekie, pīngao and tīkumu; and kaimoana such as pāua, kina, kuku, pupu, pipi and karengo. The area is also known for an extensive complex of gardens — the borrow pits, umu and midden make the Waiau-Toa one of the most significant archaeological areas in New Zealand. Kūmara grew in plenty thanks to the local microclimate.

Te Rauparaha's raids

In 1827 the Ngāti Toa chief Te Rauparaha began his raids on the upper South Island. Based at Kapiti, and armed with muskets and canoes captured at the battle of Wai-o-rua, he waged a war of extermination on the less-prepared southern tribes. The paramount chief of Kaikōura, Rerewhakaaitu, vowed that if Te Rauparaha set foot on his lands he would be gutted with a hine mango (shark's tooth). In 1829 Te Rauparaha arrived at Kaikōura: in the battle of hine mango he caught the local iwi unaware, killing many and taking captives back to Kapiti, including the chief himself.

Kekerengu

Kekerengu, son of a Ngāti-Ira chief, was a handsome and charming young warrior. When Ngāti-Ira fell to Ngāti Toa, his mother Tamairangi and her children were taken captive; Te Rauparaha's first lieutenant Rangihaeata took pity and made her his wife. Foolishly, Kekerengu began a relationship with one of Rangihaeata's other wives, and fled south with his mother and a small group of followers — first to the Marlborough Sounds, then to Ōmihi. Rangihaeata and Te Rauparaha pursued him, slaughtering any who harboured the fugitives, but Kekerengu slipped away north to the area that now bears his name, before pushing inland to Matai Flat, where he lived for several years on wild pig, kākā and kererū. There are two accounts of his end: one that Ngāi Tahu / Ngāti Kuri forces caught him at the mouth of the Waiau-Toa; another that he escaped back up the river, an old whare later found near where the Ouse joins the Waiau-Toa.

Three battles of the coast

Many battles, large and small, were fought along this coast before and after the Ngāi Tahu conquest of around 1650. Relayed through oral history, the details vary, but the stories endure.

Tete-whai ("barbed spears") was fought between the Kekerengu and Waima rivers, after Ngāti Māmoe from the Wairau attacked a Ngāi Tahu chief fishing at the Wairau mouth. Ngāi Tahu waited two years before taking utu; warned that the Ngāti Māmoe were preparing spears tipped with stingray barbs, the warrior Rakai-tauwheke still led the way up the hill and into the pā to victory. The defeated Ngāti Māmoe moved south to Matariki, on the north bank of the Waiau-Toa.

Paoiroro, or Kai-karoro ("seagulls' food"), was fought on the north side of the river between Ngāi Tahu and an allied Ngāti Māmoe and Rangitāne force; the victory came at such cost in dead that it earned the name "the feasting of the gulls."

Waipapa turned on a slight: two Ngāi Tahu chiefs had married Ngāti Māmoe women, but only one was welcomed to the well-fortified pā at Waipapa. The aggrieved chief Apoka carried his grievance to the Ngāi Tahu stronghold at Wairau, and a war party hid beneath the Ngāti Māmoe canoes, waiting for them to come down to fish. The warrior Uhikore, hidden beneath the chief Paua's waka, leapt up and struck him down with a single blow; seeing this, the Ngāti Māmoe fled, and the battle was an easy victory.

We hope this small overview of the river and its stories has helped you learn something of our awa, te Waiau-Toa — its maunga and its whenua.

Sources

• Ngāi Tahu — ngaitahu.iwi.nz (history of the Waiau-Toa, PDF)
• Life on Muzzle — Fiona Redfern
• Kaikoura, a History of the District — J. M. Sherrard
• Marlborough Place Names — H. A. H. Insull
• Kaikoura Coast: Māori History, Traditions and Place Names — W. J. Elvy