Whanganui River

“E rere kau mai te Awanui, Mai i te Kahui maunga ki Tangaroa. Ko au te Awa, ko te Awa ko au.” “The great river flows From the mountains to the sea. I am the river, the river is me.”

When the Whanganui River became the first river in the world to be granted the legal rights of a person, Maori, whose history has lain alongside the river for centuries, rejoiced. “We’ve always fought for the mana of the river,” said Gerrard Albert, the lead negotiator for Whanganui iwi, when the legislation was passed. “We treat the river as a tupuna, as an ancestor, and we needed to find something that would approximate that in law and uphold it.”

New Zealand’s third longest river meanders, churns and ripples for 290km from the northern slopes of Mount Tongariro to the Tasman Sea, changing colour as it passes through steep-sided fern-clad gorges: from an earthy green in the deep pools to palest turquoise as it travels over shallow rapids. When tangata whenua first settled on its banks more than 700 years ago, the river was thick with lamprey and eels, and, in the surrounding bush, the kereru (bush pigeon) were fat and plentiful. The riverbanks offered protection from marauders and the river was useful for trade. The area along the river was one of the most densely settled parts of New Zealand with more than 100 villages along the banks. Today, settlements such as Kaiwhaiki, Parikino, Matahiwi and Pipiriki remain, although some are better known by the names given to them by Bible-clutching missionaries who pushed up the valleys in the 1840s. Jerusalem is the prettiest by far, perched on a bluff above a bend in the river. The river is best seen from the water and there are many ways to do that, depending on time and energy.