Rugby: Tour will explore Te Puna's roots

Aiden Kuka (left) and Tommy Wilson, pictured at the Te Puna Rugby Club. Photo / John Borren

When two young friends, Emile Borell and Louis Bidois, arrived in Te Puna in the 1850s from Normandy in France, they unwittingly became the central characters in establishing a special community.

The two men married into local Maori families and the Borell and Bidois families grew to be two of the biggest and most well-known in the district. Nowhere is this more evident than at the Te Puna Rugby Club, where the French/Maori tradition is revered.

During the 2011 Rugby World Cup, large numbers of French rugby fans were hosted at the club and nearby marae in a special coming together of the generations. The French groups included coaches from three rugby clubs and 40 forestry industry chiefs.

Out of those exchanges came the genesis of a plan to take a tour party to the birthplaces of Borell and Bidois.

After three years of preparation, the tour party of 48 leaves on September 13 for a 22-day trip that will take in five countries.

Two of the organisers are long-term club members Tommy Wilson and Aiden Kuka.

Wilson is a descendant of the Borell and Bidois families, which he traced, on a trip to France in the 1980s, to Honfleur and Touques in Normandy.

"The area around there is like Te Puna. They have a horse background, grew apples and the only difference I tell people is the cars had warrants," Wilson said. "I came home and wrote a book about it called Le Whanau in 2002 and realised there was a lot of interest in our French side."

Kuka says the tour is to help both the rugby and cultural side of Te Puna, with the club's centenary not far away in 2019.

"From a rugby point of view, we wanted to attract players to our club and take them on an experience that, hopefully, will keep them here for many years to come," Kuka said.

"It also allows the wider community to come on this trip to visit places that our ancestors come from.

"We announced this at our AGM in 2012. There has not been much fundraising. We have young boys here who have dedicated themselves to savings plans and teaching them how to save is another outcome of this trip."

The connections in France, including businessman Fabrice Bernard who lived in Te Puna for a year, have been invaluable to keep costs down in France and Italy, where Kuka played rugby.

"Fabrice has got us into Rugby Club Toulon, where we will be hosted, and their people are coming to watch our sevens game in this little village. Our dream is for one of our players to be picked up by a club there," Wilson said.