A place of ancient and ‘alien’ taonga

Recently, I went for a night walk in the bush and met an alien-like worm. I also paid my respects to a 2000-year-old pu¯ riri tree that was once a repository for ancestral bones.

This all took place in a four-and-a-half-hectare bush reserve in O¯ po¯ tiki, in the eastern Bay of Plenty.

I’ve visited Hukutaia Domain many times since childhood, and have perhaps become blase about this taonga right on my doorstep.

It took a Matariki-inspired guided night walk with the Hukutaia Domain Care Group volunteers to remind me what a taonga this place really is.

The ancient tree is Taketakerau, which was used 200-300 years ago by the people of U¯ pokorehe to safeguard ancestral bones.

The area is a wa¯ hi tapu, and the tree is the reason this reserve survives today, surrounded by farmland.

Taketakerau is 2000 years old, and was written about in the 2011 children’s book by Marnie Anstis, Taketakerau: The Millennium Tree.

The tree is well-loved locally, but nowhere near as famous as its northern relation, the ancient kauri tree, Ta¯ ne Mahuta.

But back to the alien-like worm that I encountered. The Peripatus (nga¯ okeoke), or velvet worm, is a carnivore with whakapapa that goes back 500 million years.

It spits at its prey, which semi-paralyses them and sticks them to the ground. It then sucks their innards out. But despite that, it is quite a pretty worm.

With insect and spider experts leading our group, I encountered incredible creatures I would normally never notice. A few arachnophobes among us turned their eyes away from the nursery web spider and other arachnids we saw.

We encountered we¯ ta¯ from large to fingernail size. There is also a newly discovered we¯ ta¯ , so far only found in Hukutaia Domain, yet to be officially named.

O¯ po¯ tiki has its forefathers to thank for preserving the domain. It stands on land confiscated from Ma¯ ori. But the first Pa¯ ke¯ ha owner, Edward Massey Hutchinson, carved off the site and gave it to the O¯ po¯ tiki people. It became a reserve in 1918, and is now council owned.

In 1913, one of Hutchinson’s workers realised the ancient pu¯ riri on the farm was a burial tree, when a big storm took out a large branch, exposing 20-30 sets of bones. U¯ pokorehe then removed the bones and re-buried them elsewhere.

Hukutaia Domain is now a Noah’s Ark of New Zealand bugs, birds and plants, and is looked after by the volunteer group. It is home to many rare and endangered native plants, thanks to the efforts of Norman Potts and Marcus Heginbotham.

From the 1930s, O¯ po¯ tiki solicitor Potts, searched out species from the Far North to the Chatham Islands, and established them at the domain.

Botanist Heginbotham catalogued them, and many of the plants in the domain are labelled with their name and origin.

Pest trapping by the volunteers has seen an increase in birds, bugs, and possibly even the return of the short-tailed bat. Birdlife includes bellbirds, tu¯ ı¯ and weka, which are common throughout O¯ po¯ tiki.

As well as the newer plants, Hukutaia Domain has old bush where you can feel the tread of the ancients. But walkers can tread easily, thanks to boardwalks and gravel tracks, mostly made by volunteer labour.

It is a great place to visit for young and old or, as one kid wrote in the visitor book, ‘‘Read the book. Seen the tree. Cool.’’