They were greeted by a cacophony of haka, putatara (conch shells) and pukaea (wooden trumpets) from hundreds of people on the riverbank, including almost the entire roll of Bay of Plenty school Te Wharekura o Tauranga Moana. Many sailors on the Waka Tapu (sacred canoe) expedition, including chief navigator Jack Thatcher, hail from Tauranga.
Their welcome doubled as the opening ceremony for a new campus of the New Zealand Maori Arts and Crafts Institute, teaching the ancient arts of waka-building and navigation.
Institute director and Waka Tapu organiser Karl Johnstone said it was "a pretty epic voyage deep into the heart of the Pacific" and a catalyst for reviving connections to the rest of Polynesia. Most New Zealand cultures had arrived by sea, yet Kiwis had become a land-locked people.
"When we look at the ocean we see it as a barrier, instead of seeing it as a continent in itself, a pathway," he said.
Mr Johnstone said challenges on the journey included a storm on the last leg from Rarotonga, which sent the waka into an eight-day circle and left a few sailors with broken ribs. One crew member was treated on arrival at Mill Bay by St John medics for dehydration. Each waka had 10 to 12 sailors on board at any one time. In total 60 people took part, aged 18 to 67 and from many different iwi. Northlanders included captain Stanley Conrad (Te Kao).
Te Runanga o Te Rarawa chairman Haami Piripi said the journey was a powerful re-expression of Maori identity, and fulfilled Mr Busby's aspiration of following in the footsteps of his ancestor, Tumoana, who returned to Hawaiki.
"But it's become much more than that. It's a renaissance of a whole genre of skills, knowledge and culture relating to the sea," he said, adding that it had also rekindled relationships with Maoridom's Pacific cousins.
An emotional Mr Busby said he was proud of the sailors who had fulfilled his dream of more than 25 years. The 81-year-old flew to Rapanui to be on board Te Aurere when the waka arrived at their destination.
Mr Thatcher said that he was looking forward to seeing his wife and daughter again, as well as the everyday Kiwi things he had done without for 10 months, although the voyage's final leg to Rapanui had been like a fairy tale.
"We had contrary winds all the way, but coming in to Rapanui this corridor opened up and we just speared through the winds. If that wasn't our tupuna guiding the way for us I don't know what it was."
His daughter, Tarere Thatcher, suspected that even the sailors had yet to realise the scale of their achievement.
She had seen her father only fleetingly since the waka left Auckland in August, and was looking forward to catching up. Sailing traditional waka was his passion, and the voyage had meant a lot to him.
Her first words to her father were: "Hello old man, you need a shave."
Te Aurere has come home - page 2
