Pre-European history Many
iwi whakapapa back to Karioi, which features in several
Māori legends. One says that, a long time ago, Karewa was the husband of Karioi, but he flirted with her sister, Pirongia, and was cast into the sea as the offshore rock named by
Captain James Cook as
Gannet Island. The profile of Karioi from Raglan is likened to a 'Sleeping Lady' (Wahine Moe). The final destination of the
Tainui migratory canoe was at the Kawhia harbour. Some members of
Tainui settled at the foothills at the base of Karioi. Among these was the
tohunga Rakatāura / Hape, who ascended Karioi and established a
tūāhupapa (sacred altar) near the peak, and gave the mountain its name. (page 17) describes the start of European history - ''“The sails of
Abel Tasman's two ships were seen not long before noon on 28 December 1642. . .Tasman's own account of the incident. . . "on the 28th in the morning, at daybreak, set sail again, shaped our course east in order to ascertain whether the aforementioned land which we had seen in 40 degrees, extends still further northward or whether it falls away to eastward. At noon saw a high mountain east by north of us." This was Karioi. "First took it to be an island," . . . but afterwards saw that it was an extended coast. We were about 4 miles from shore"'' ''. . . The date was 11 January 1770. Cook . . . wrote in his journal, "found ourselves between 2 and 3 leagues from the land which was of moderate height and cloathed with wood and verdure. At 7 o'clock steered south-by-east and afterwards saw the land lying in that direction." He did not see the harbour of Whaingaroa but could not miss Karioi Mountain. "At 9 was abreast of a point of land which rises sloaping from the sea to a considerable height. It lies in the latitude 37 degrees 43 minutes south. I named it Woody Head. South-west-a-half-west 11 miles from the head is a very small island which we named
Gannet Island on account of the great number of these birds we saw upon it. At noon a high craggy point bore east-north east one and a half leagues: this point I have named Albatross Point.“'' - page 61 -
“Representative Government . . . did not become effective until early in 1854. One of its first tasks was to find land for the steadily growing number of prospective settlers reaching these shores . . . The astute Donald McLean, whom Governor Grey had appointed Chief Land Purchase Commissioner in 1853, began negotiations with the west coast tribes almost immediately. In the 8 months from January to August, 1854, he arranged the purchase of more than 40,000 acres of native land in the present County area. . . On 11 April McLean paid 50 golden sovereigns as a deposit on . . . the Wharauroa Block . . . On the day following the first payment on Wharauroa, McLean handed over a similar sum in gold to "the chiefs and people of Whaingaroa" as a deposit on the Karioi Block. This area of about 12,000 acres embraced the whole of Karioi Mountain. It extended down the coast from the mouth of the Wainui Stream (just inside South Head) to the Ruapuke Stream. Here the boundary ran NE in a straight line toward Te Mata where it met the Opotoru Stream and followed it northward for about 3 miles. Thence it ran west and north to the starting point near the mouth of the harbour. A reserve of 600 acres was set apart for the former Maori owners. 18 months later, on 5 November 1855 (the day on which the last of the £575 purchase money was paid over) 65 of them, including about a dozen boys, signed the deed or affixed their marks in the presence of John Rogan and James Wallis. "These lands," read the document in part, "we have now entirely given up to Victoria the in the broad light of this day and for ever; with its creeks, its rivers, its streams, its timber and stones." ''“The price paid for the Karioi Block (which amounted to 11½d an acre) was in keeping with the Government's view of native land values in the middle '50s, particularly in this instance, when the extent of mountainous terrain was taken into account. From the heavily forested summit of Karioi Mountain, steep-sided ridges and ravines descended on both seaward and landward sides. When Rogan took over land negotiations in the Whaingaroa and Aotea districts in 1855, McLean told him: "You cannot do wrong in acquiring land at prices varying from 6d to 1/6 per acre in a part of the country that promises to become such a valuable appendage to the Crown territory."'' [However, an alternative view says Karioi was given to the Crown in 1855. page 127 -
“The first block in the county, opened in 1878, for settlement under the [Homestead] scheme, was in the Karioi district. It was soon taken up, and the council, quick to see the advantages of bringing in more people, urged the Waste Lands Board to make other blocks available. . . The Waste Lands Board was also asked to provide the means to make roads to the Homestead selections and, by 1883, this work was under way. The system did much to open up the district”. - page 177 -
“after the war, the two Jackson brothers . . . bulldozed out a road. With Mr J. Forbes of Whale Bay, as overseer, and two Maori men and a staunch Maori woman as labourers, they contracted to do work on the road for the county council. By mid-1953 the [Whaanga] road was almost completed, though metalling was not done for 2 years.” Although the on-line history of the summit trig mark only dates back to 1995, it was first surveyed by
Laurence Cussen, probably not long after 1876. Many timber mills were set up around Karioi e.g. page 230
“The Raglan Sawmilling Co, a public concern, was formed in 1919 to mill timber on Mt Karioi, said to contain on its eastern slopes some of the finest stands of rimu in the country . . . In 1928, a fire swept through Te Hutewai, the flames destroying vegetation — and a sawmill — along the entire strip of land between Ruapuke and Raglan. The aftermath of charred stumps and blackened earth may well have symbolised the death of the timber industry in Raglan. The last mills — at Karioi . . . closed in the late 1930s”. , Taranaki Point on the left, Albatross Point (Honipaka), the Herangi Range and
Mount Taranaki The route of Whaanga Rd, around the coast side of Karioi, was first considered for a road in 1886. It was bulldozed through in 1953. About the same distance to the south is
Mōtakotako marae of Ngāti Whakamarurangi. Tirohia Marae on the central plateau is a traditional meeting ground of the
Ngāti Rangi hapū of
Ngāti Hīoi. Their marae is situated in Karioi near Ohakune, not Raglan. == Geology ==