Girls retrace tohunga's journey of discovery

The girls cross Lake Tarawera by waka. Picture / Alan Gibson

Perhaps 800 years ago, the tohunga-navigator of the Arawa canoe, Ngatoroirangi, began a great exploration inland from the canoe's landing place at Maketu.

He went up Te Awa o te Atua, through Kawerau, passing Putauaki to Mt Tarawera, Tauhara and south as far as Mt Tongariro.

This month Chelsea Rangiheuea, a 13-year-old Rotorua Girls' High School student, and a small band of other 13 and 14-year-old girls retraced his steps.

Despite the wintry weather, they walked along the beach at Maketu, paddled on Lake Tarawera and climbed into the snow on Tongariro.

"It was the first time I had been in the snow on the mountain," says Chelsea. "It was real cool. I built my own snowman with carrot eyes and a carrot nose. Someone had made one before, but I put it back together and made my own one with a mohawk."

At a museum on the mountain, the girls deposited shells they had collected on the beach at Maketu. At night, they stayed in a cabin at Lake Tarawera.

"I learned to do outdoor things and stay overnight in cold places," Chelsea says.

"We all wanted to go home on Tuesday because it was really miserable and everyone wasn't getting on.

"But we all talked about that and had little notebooks about what they thought about it. Then everyone started getting along till we left."

The five-day "Te Arawa Journey", which took place this time in the school holidays but normally happens over six successive weekends, stretched the girls to their limits.

"We take them on a journey of rediscovering who they are, rather than having to put up with all this negativity in gangs and that type of thing," says Bob Te Aonui, the team leader from Te Waiariki Purea Trust.

Trust co-director Laurie Durand explains: "It's natural that a young person is wanting to find themselves, to take risks, to check things out.

"If we can do that in a positive way, that's what programmes like Te Arawa Journey are about. It's challenging to paddle 3km or 4km across a lake, to cook their own kai, to hear the songs and the korero of what went before."

The programme is financed by Child, Youth and Family and is aimed at 10 to 14-year-olds referred by community organisations, school counsellors, social workers and guardians.

Mixed with the history and adventure, there is time for the young people to talk about their hopes and goals with sympathetic adults.

Co-director Putu Mihaka would love to get money to provide the same programme for the parents so they can share their children's experiences and help them achieve their goals.

"We'd like to put them on a similar journey because a lot are saying, 'Can I come?"'