Bill Maunsell and the almost 8-tonne boulder mounted atop a mound of lime near the entrances to the Anzac Cross walkway and Tinui Cemetery. PHOTO/LYNDA FERINGA
Bill Maunsell and the almost 8-tonne boulder mounted atop a mound of lime near the entrances to the Anzac Cross walkway and Tinui Cemetery. PHOTO/LYNDA FERINGA
AN ALMOST eight-tonne rolling stone has finally found a forever home at Tinui after a front-page history of travel around Wairarapa.
Mataikona farmer Bill Maunsell said the Maunsell family at Rahui had gifted the roughly spherical boulder to the people of Tinui and the wider Wairarapa community, as a "memorial to peace" at the entrance to the Tinui Cemetery and the Anzac Memorial Cross, which became the first World War I memorial in New Zealand at its unveiling in 1916.
He said almost two-metre diameter behemoth had been craned on to its most level plane atop a mound of lime, and he plans to put a plaque at the site, giving a more detailed geological description of the stone and its original location.
His forebears, who fought in both world wars, were named on the Tinui Anzac Memorial and his father and mother, Fred and Ray Maunsell, were buried in the nearby cemetery, where he intends to be laid to rest himself, he said.
Mr Maunsell said his family had been in the district since 1859 and had owned the original 8000ha Tinui Station, the back part of which he was still farming, alongside his sister.
The boulder had for ages past sat alone, partially buried in an area alongside Mataikona Rd known as, of course, Boulder Gully.
Jill Maunsell and daughter Kate Absolom with the sandstone boulder near its original location in an area beside Mataikona Rd. PHOTO/SUPPLIED
Mr Maunsell, 70, was this week told the boulder was an example of sandstone or shale concretion from the Whangai Formation, a strata of rocky sediment particular to the district dating back 70 to 90 million years to the late Cretaceous or early Paleocene epochs.
"I've known about it since I was a kid. Dad always thought it was a meteorite because it was so unusual and by itself with just a bit of native scrub around it. But I don't think so. It probably come down the gully or something," he said.
"It really is unique. It's got some fractures that have probably got worse over the years. I think they were caused by a digger someone used to try and smash it open at one stage, thinking there was something in it."
In 2003 the boulder vanished, he said, and was reported to police as "lost".
"One day my wife said 'I can't see the boulder'. We went to have a look and sure enough, it had gone. I scratched my head, rang the police and said, 'We lost a rock'.
"I decided I'd ring the Times-Age as well. It was splashed all over the front page and we found out where it was that night."
Mr Maunsell discovered the boulder had been adopted by former Masterton man Rick Hemi, who had mistakenly believed the rock was ownerless and had been left unwanted on a section of unfenced wasteland.
The boulder, then estimated to weigh about 3 tonnes, steadily grew along with its story and was found to weigh closer to 8 tonnes, Mr Maunsell said.
"I didn't want to press any charges and the guy who took it brought it back, so that was the end of that," he said.
"It's been rolled round a bit since then because we do logging in there and it was pulled out from where it was.
"I thought it's probably going to get messed around some more, and that it had been a rolling stone for long enough. So we gave it a new home. Hopefully it's going to be there forever."
Mr Maunsell said somebody had once named the unusual stone Bill's Boulder, but he preferred that it be known simply as "the boulder" and its plaque will tell of its significance.
