Upokongaro or Ūpokongaro is a settlement upriver from

Whanganui Whanganui (; ), also spelled Wanganui, is a city in the Manawatū-Whanganui region of New Zealand. The city is located on the west coast of the North Island at the mouth of the Whanganui River, New Zealand's longest navigable waterway. Whang ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, in the Makirikiri Valley. Settled by Europeans in the 1860s, it was an important ferry crossing and riverboat stop. A spectacular discovery of

moa Moa are extinct giant flightless birds native to New Zealand. The term has also come to be used for chicken in many Polynesian cultures and is found in the names of many chicken recipes, such as Kale moa and Moa Samoa. Moa or MOA may also refe ...

bones was made in the area in the 1930s.

Māori history

The village's name in

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...

, ''ūpoko'' (head) ''ngaro'' (hidden), refers to a story of how chief's daughter Ira-nga-rangi arranged to have her head removed upon her death and hidden by relatives, who feared it might be desecrated by enemies. Supposedly the preserved head was hidden in a cave on the banks of the Ūpokongaro Stream north of the settlement, from which the village takes its name. At the time of European contact, both Ūpokongaro and adjacent settlements Waipakura and Kukuta were home to the Ngāti Patutokotoko

hapū In Māori and New Zealand English, a ' ("subtribe", or " clan") functions as "the basic political unit within Māori society". A Māori person can belong to or have links to many hapū. Historically, each hapū had its own chief and normally op ...

of the

iwi Iwi () are the largest social units in New Zealand Māori society. In Māori roughly means "people" or "nation", and is often translated as "tribe", or "a confederation of tribes". The word is both singular and plural in the Māori language, ...

Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi. Ngāti Iringirangi and Nga Paerangi are also noted as being present. The fortified hilltop pā at Ūpokongaro was called Opiu; during the tense times of the 1840s, Opiu was pulled down and abandoned. Waipakura, south of Ūpokongaro, was one of a number of native reserves set aside in the 1848 Deed of Sale; some of it was leased to settlers in the 1860s. Ūpokongaro was described as a "small pā" in 1865, and Māori settlement persisted until at least the 1880s. The pā site at Opiu was used as a refuge for settlers' wives and children in 1862, when there were fears of Hau Hau war parties, and was later turned into a

redoubt A redoubt (historically redout) is a fort or fort system usually consisting of an enclosed defensive emplacement outside a larger fort, usually relying on earthworks, although some are constructed of stone or brick. It is meant to protect soldi ...

European settlement

In 1866, settler John Kennedy built a hotel and a store (later the post office); during the 1870s and '80s, the local name for Ūpokongaro was "Kennedy's". A school was built in 1870, known from 1873–1879 as the North Makirikiri or "River Bank" school. The schoolroom functioned for Anglican services in the mid 1870s, but in 1877 St Mary's Anglican Church was built. Designed by local architect Edward Morgan and built by John Randal, St Mary's is distinctive in having a

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires a ...

with a triangular cross-section, on a four-sided

steeple In architecture, a steeple is a tall tower on a building, topped by a spire and often incorporating a belfry and other components. Steeples are very common on Christian churches and cathedrals and the use of the term generally connotes a religi ...

. Its stained glass window was installed in 1879, in memory of Archibald Montgomery, a young Upokongaro man lost in the sinking of the clipper ''Avalanche'' in the English Channel just before the church was completed. St Mary's is the oldest church in the

Whanganui District Whanganui District is one of the districts of New Zealand. It includes the city of Whanganui and surrounding areas. Geography Formerly spelled "Wanganui", the Whanganui District Council resulted from the amalgamation of Wanganui and Waitotara cou ...

on its original site.

Moa discovery

In the 1930s, thousands of

bones were recovered from mud springs in the Upokongaro Valley at Makirikiri by a Wanganui Museum expedition. Life-sized concrete moa sculptures commemorating this can be seen on the main road outside the Upokongaro Cafe.

Education

Upokongaro School is a co-educational state primary school for Year 1 to 8 students, with a roll of as of . Ūpokongaro_cycle_bridge

Cycle trail

Ūpokongaro is on the Mountains to Sea cycle trail (Ngā Ara Tūhono), at the junction of the Whanganui River Road and Ūpokongaro to the Tasman Sea sections. The sections are linked by Ūpokongaro Cycle Bridge, which opened on 2 December 2020. The long bridge and cycle path link to it cost $3.4m.

References

{{coord, 39, 52, S, 175, 08, E, display=title, region:NZ_type:city_source:GNS-enwiki Whanganui River Populated places in Manawatū-Whanganui Settlements on the Whanganui River Whanganui District