Te Whanganui / Port Underwood Heritage Trail

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1. A place of cultural significance
2. Robin Hood Bay/Waikutatkuta
3. Kāinga of Ngāti Toa rangatira Nohorua
4. Cutters Bay: birthplace of a remarkable woman
5. Centre of pre-Treaty Māori and settler negotiations
6. Kākāpō Bay cemetery
7. Maryann Daken: “The heart of a lion”
8. Land of the free
9. Marlborough’s first church
10. Dakota disaster

Te Whanganui/Port Underwood is an isolated area of the Marlborough Sounds, known today for marine farming and forestry and popular with recreational fishers and holidaymakers.

But peel back the years, and a chequered history of treachery, murder, adventure, industry and survival lurks beneath the aquamarine waters of the port.

Before the first Europeans arrived in Te Whanganui/Port Underwood in 1830 to expand the shore whaling industry in the Marlborough Sounds, large populations of Māori had occupied and travelled through the area at various times for more than 600 years.

Ngāti Toa Rangatira ki Wairau chair John Grey says areas in the port, including Pukatea/Whites Bay were used by Māori for cultivating kūmara, yam, taro and other vegetables, while the many bays, beaches and rivers provided important sources of kaimoana/seafood including fish and mussels, whitebait, eels and seaweed.

Horahora Kākahu and Ōraumoa/Fighting Bay are well known fortified pā sites that were still being used by Māori after the arrival of Europeans. There are also many urupā (burial sites), garden terraces and kāinga (villages), such as Pukatea/Whites Bay that remain areas of cultural significance to many iwi (tribes), including Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Ngāti Rārua and Rangitāne to this day.

In Māori, John says, Te Whanganui means the harbour. Port Underwood was named after Joseph Underwood of the shipping firm Kabel and Underwood in the early 19th century. There is also a story of a great flood sometime between 1815 and 1825, when so many trees were washed into Te Koko-o-Kupe/Cloudy Bay that the bay and the port were “underwood”, he says.

Shore whaling began in Te Whanganui/Port Underwood in 1830 at Kākāpō Bay and the area quickly grew to become one of the busiest in the country. John says European settlers converged on the area to take advantage of the booming whaling industry, with the permission of local iwi Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Rārua and Rangitāne.

John Grey of Ngāti Rārua, Ngāti Toa and Rangitāne whakapapa is a Blenheim-based Ngāti Toa Rangatira ki Wairau chair.

Wendy’s family on both sides have a long association with Te Whanganui/Port Underwood, with her ancestors being among some of the earliest European settlers in the area.