I have taken excerts from a wonderfully interesting journal written from March 1846 to January 1847 during an overland exursion from Wellnigton to Auckland, by two British Officers. A beautifully descriptive look at the way things were 164 years ago.

These excerts should whet your appetite to read ALL the journals available at the links below

NOTES FROM A JOURNAL

March 17 1846 left Wellington at half-past eight, a.m. on our road to Wanganui
... arrived at Jackson's clearing on the Porirua road where about 40 of the Volunteer Militia were stationed under the command of Captain CLIFFORD ...

March 18 went to RAUPARAHA's Te Raparaha pah at Parramata, RANGIHAEATA was in the pah close at hand but did not make his appearance. Rauparaha gave us a letter to HEUEHU at Taupo
... at Waikanae the native church is well worth seeing as an example of native ingenuity. It is 40 feet long by 30 broad; the inside is neatly fitted up with reeds and a kind of arabesque painting on the wood work
... at Waikanae we saw a most extraoridinary looking being, a white man with red hair

March 23 after a twelve mile walk we arrived at the Manawatu river. The man that ferried us over was named by the Bishop as "Wellington" as he had ben a great warrior in his youth. His native name however was KAI TANGATA

March 28 moved off at daylight six miles to the Turehina river which is dangerous on account of quicksand. Mr MASON, a Missionary at Wanganui was drowned here about three years ago while trying to cross it on horseback. Three miles on we forded the Wangaehu which was nearly five feet deep and after a walk of nine miles arrived in Wanganui

April 1 went across to the so-called town of Wanganui which consists at present of some ten or twelve small houses and a rather pretty little wooden church
- in May 2010, 164 years later, Wanganui had an estimated population of 39,700}

April 2 spoke to a Chief, one of the principal men at Taupo, named HEREKIEKIE, (?-1861 Ngati Tuwharetoa leader. Te Herekiekie of Ngati Tuwharetoa belonged to the hapu Ngati Te Aho. He is thought to have been born in the second decade of the nineteenth century. Through his father, Tauteka, leader of Ngati Te Aho, he was descended from the senior Ngati Tuwharetoa line. His mother was Te Kahurangi, who was descended from Puha-o-te-rangi, the ancestor of the Wanganui people. After his father's death he assumed the leadership of Ngati Te Aho, who lived on the southern shore of Lake Taupo. There his authority was largely independent of the tribal leaders bearing the name Te Heuheu) who was going to start next day and we made a bargain with him to give us four men to carry our baggage to Rotorua for ?5 4s (roughly $400 in 2010)

April 4 to 8 heavy rain and flood, landed at Kanihini where there was a large pah

April 9 we proceeded our voyage up the river, still among high hills. There were several rapids which required a great deal of labour to get up. At nightfall we landed at the foot of Taupiri, a mountain, visible eighty or ninety miles off

April 11 Easter Saturday we got up the rapids seven or eight miles by means of pulling ourselves along by the branches on the banks and polling. Landed at a potato field where the whole tribe set to work digging potatoes and building warres (whares, houses) which they did in a very short itme. In the night it came on a gale and blew down most of the warres

April 12 heavy thunder-storm during the night ... the old priest praying to the lightning

April 14 passed Operiki, a large fortified pah from which there is a path to Taupo

April 15 ... and so on till we reach Pukeika, a large settlemnt on the spur of a hill over the river
... went across to Pateareho, another large settlement on the opposite side

April 16 went over to Pakeika and saw a native church, now building, of totara wood; it will be 64 feet by 34 feet

April 20 ... the path was hardly visible and we were compelled to resort to creeping rather than walking as the wood was full of vine or supple jack

April 22 a boy, in scraping up the ground, found a large earth worm about eight inches long which he was proceeding to cook, when it was snatched from him by an old woman who immediately put it on the fire, and when frizzled, double it up in four pieces and ate it up with great relish

April 23 ... from the top of one of the hills we had a view of Tongariro capped with snow, at seven miles distance

April 24 ... three miles further on, arrived at the edge of a deep ravine, where the path joins Ikurangi and becomes rather better for four miles on to the Manguiwero

April 26 ... built a ware, lit a fire, cooked potatoes and two Kaka we had shot

April 27 ... about eighteen miles from the wood we halted for the night at the foot of Tongariro, on the banks of the Wangaehu which is here, a mere rivulet

April 28 at a mile from the river we came to a dreary tract at the base of the mountain (Tongariro) covered with shingle and large blocks of stone and scoria. Two small streams of whitish colour were running down form the mountain which he had the curiosity to taste and we found strongly impreganated with sulphuric acid
... the natives showed us a place where they said a large number of maori were frozen to death

April 29 we got the first view of the Taupo lake, from the hill over Mangatawai river. It is very like the Bay of Islands, coming from Waimate to Kiri Kiri. Fifteen miles from Waikihohoru, over grassy plains and small hills, brought us to Rotorua lake. We crossed over a small river to the pa 'Paito'

May 2 marched sixteen miles to the hot springs, which form baths of different degrees of temperature; some boiling to that degree that the natives cook their food in them, and formerly they used to put their prisoners into them. Some of the waters taste like Epsom salts. We believe they have all been analysed by Dr DIEFFENBACH Ernst Dieffenbach (1811?1855) Naturalist, writer, and professor of geology was born in 1811 at Giessen, Germany, the son of a Lutheran clergyman-professor. In 1839 he sailed to New Zealand in the Tory as surgeon and naturalist for the New Zealand Company. In the course of surveying the country for the Company, Dieffenbach made extensive journeys into the interior of the North Island, exploring Tongariro, Taupo, Waikato, and Whaingaroa, and he made the first successful climb of Mount Egmont. He also visited the Chatham Islands

September 22 I left Auckland at daybreak ... the view of the town from Manukao road, as it crosses the first ridge behind it, is very pleasing, but the scene had a peculiar interest in my eyes, as six years before I had stood almost on the same spot, at the same season of the year, when four white tents and a few scattered raupo huts, scarce visible amidst the tangled wood around, containing about sixty individuals, were the representatives of huts, which lay near a rugged cultivation, had disappeared since my last visit in 1841 and were replaced by those of some settlers amidst fenced fields, and a somewhat superior ware, occupied by the chief Te WERO WERO on his occaional visits to this part of the country, was now represented by a public house (pub, hotel)

December 23 about five miles from Papakura we reached the banks of the Awa Paheke

December 24 on the way to Tuakau a very long and descriptive account of the day and their surroundings. Mentions the names of people, tribes & places like: RANGATIRA, TAUREKAREKA, PAKURA, NGTIAWA, KAWHIA, TUAKAU (settlement of a few houses within a stockade), MAKETU, WAIKATO, WAITEMATE, NGATITIPAO, TAUPIRI, NGATIPO, Mr MARSHALL, PAPARAMA, HARAKI, WAKETEWAI, WANGAPE, MANAKAU

Xmas Day 1846 we passed several canoes from Maungatautari (an eroded andesitic volcano near Cambridge) and the Waipa, bound for Tuakau, with cargoes of pigs for the Auckland market... they stopped to inform us that it was currently reported at the Waipa that the Ngatirapaua of Taupo were mustering to join their countrymen at Wanganui

December 26 ... we paddled onwards to a small settlement on the left bank called Motutarata, belonging to a sept of the Waikatos called Ngaugnaua, where we landed. It consisted of a few huts and a ware (whare, house) and was as usual surrounded by a stout pallisade
... the whole course of the river, indeed, from Pukatea to Taupiri, is almost bare of wood, which is one reason why the settlements are so few along a tract. Out host was a middle-aged man, who had been 18 years in the country and had married the daughter of a Chief of the Ngaugnaua
... these men, were generally deserters from whalers, or coasting vessels, often runaway-Convicts, who have found their way to the island
... the low hills approach on either side had, to within a mile and a half of the bank, connected on one hand with the Taupiri range, on the other, with the great sea range, rich alluvial land lying between
... about three miles further on we reached the settlement of the Kupukupu at the mouth of the pass, where Abraham, a brother of Te WHEROWHERO resides and who ferried us across to the opposite bank to show us a seam of coal which crops out from the face of a clayhill not more than three hundred yards from shore

December 28 two miles upward, the Kaitotehe-flat terminates at the pa of Ngatihouroua, where we landed to take shelter from a tremndous thunder-shower
... four miles beyond Ngaruawahia (the two mouths), where the western hills bend inwards from the river, there is a large tract of land, on either side, tapu, and consequently uninhabited. This was done from the double motive of being the place where a daughter of Te WHEROWHERO's (Tirai te Potatau) who was married to an Englishman called Captain KENT, died (Captain John Rudolphus Kent (?-1837) captain of the Prince Regent which, on 29 March 1820, became the first vessel to cross the Hokianga bar, first white man to settle at Kawhia), as also from being the burying place of the Chief's father
... we reached Waia Waia, five and twenty miles distant from Kaitotehe, an hour before sunset

December 29 there had been no rain in the night and the morning was bright and beautiful, so while breakfast was preparing, I strolled about to view the locality. The Terraces are seen here to a greater extent than I had onserved them elsewhere. They are evidently ancient and successive beds of the river ...
... the Valley of Kunawaniwa is a perfect basin, entirely enclosed by hills ...

December 30 the track from Kunawaniwa to Puhenui, on the Waipa, traverses the flat for three miles over grassy land, seldom interrupted by swamp
... ascending a steep ridge, aong whose crest we walked for some time, we reached the settlement of Puhenui, situated on a knoll, immediately overhanging the Waipa, which ere, about fifty yard wide, ran in a very deep bed, it banks still maintaining the terraced character. The peaks of Pirongia rising two thousand feet above the level of the country
... Puhenui is miserable place, but the view from it embraces the rolling country between it and Maungatautari and the more level tracts which extend Northward towards Taupiri and Southward to the base of the distant Rangitoto mountains an the isolated come of Kokapuka. A volume of smoke marked the site of Otawao and Rangiawhia

December 31 ... the settlement of Itawao is situated on the western side of a large level basin. The Missionary house, a commodious wooden mansion, with suitable offices, stands a little in advance of the mative pa, on a plateau surrounded by a bend of the Maungapiko ... a garden well stocked with English fruit, a large native chapel has been built near the house. Mr MORGAN has some fine sheep and cattle
... the Ngatururu, the Ngatikora and the Patukoka tribes of the Waikato confederacy, in all about three hundred souls, inhabit Otawao

January 1 1847 an extensive forest, chiefly Kahikatea covered the sides of the valley and the adjacent hills to the north, on the skirts of which is situated the ancient pa of Barewa, famous for the tomb of Te WHERWHERO's daughter, which is most elaborately carved and which contains may other relics of New Zealand art

Jaunary 3 we made Sunday a day of rest. The Natives, as I have before mentioned, are a remnant of the Ngatiraukaua tribe, who once possessed this district and Maungatautari

January 4 after crossing this isthmus we again traversed a table-land and Maungatautari again appeared through an openin and exposed a vast extent of undulating country, lying between its eastern flanks and the distant Rangitoto Mountains, at the extremity of which rose the cone of Kakapuka, backed by the faint outline of Pirongia
... we were joined by a chief of the Ngatirakaua, his wife and some followers, on their way from Rotorua to Pateteri

January 5 before we set out in the morning, the Ngatirakaua Chief took us aside and told us that a chief at Ohinemutu, the principal settlement at Rotorua, had vowed that he would kill the first Pakeha that came there, in retaliation for the death of 'his father RAUPARAHA'

January 6 we rose at day break, and on going out found the whole pa enveloped in vapour, which was rising from the numerous Ngawha ... which was heated to a temperature of 96, both by the streams that flow into it from the Ngawha as well as from a large boiling spring in its centre
... the inhabitants of Ohinemutu are five hundred in number, (there were approx 280 in 2006) one third of this number are converts to the Church Missionary Society under Mr CHAPMAN and the same number are attached to the ministry of the Roman Catholic Church, under Pere RENE one of the Propogandst Missionaries, the remainng third are pagans

January 7 our hostess was an Ariki or chieftainess of the tribe, who rejoice in the lengthy title of Ngatituhourangi, and inhabit Okariki, Tarawera and Rotomahana

January 8 we left Ruakareo after breakfast, in a canoe for Rotomahaua
... by cautiously moving along the edge of the crater, whose walls rise to some height except at the gap through which the water flows, we reached a spot from whence we could look down and see this immense boiling cauldrom within

January 9 we spent the rest of the day very agreeably in admiring the beautiful scenery of the lake from Mr SPENCER's ... in the future history of New Zealand, a visit to Tawera will be a fashionable amusement

Jamuary 11 after prayers in the house, service being held in the Native Chapel by one of their teachers, in the absence of the Reverend Mr CHAPMAN
... we pay a visit to the principal chief of Rotorua, named AKAIRO

January 12 we left the Ngae at day break in a dense fog to visit some Ngawha named TIKITERI

January 13 suffering therefore from thirst, we crossed the forest at so rapid a pace, that we reached its northern edge before sunset, walking, in twelve hours, a distance it had taken us eighteen hours to achieve in our journey southward

January 14 ... after breakfast on some fine potatoes and pork ... we then crossed the ravine at Patiteri

January 15 Mata Mata, the principal residence of the Ngatihoua tribe, is situated on a broad plain

January 16 rose at dawn and having recovered the usual path across the plain to Piaki ... we now reached the Waiarikeki, a stream so named from the quantity of flax that fils the hollow in which it runs
... we reached the Wanaki, a small settlement of a sept of the Ngatipaua, about one o'clock

January 17 we followed the right bank to Mowkero. This land is claimed by a gentleman who maintains that he purchased it in the year 1839, but the natives who reside at Mowkero deny the validity of the purchase. The pa of Mowkero is stockaded ... it was stormed by HONGI and the Ngapuhi about twenty-five years since ...

January 18 .. we arose as usual at day break but the fog was so dense that we could scarcely see a few yards beyond our bivouac
... the fog became less heavy and we could see that the banks were fringed with noble totara, a tree much resembling the English Yew in its foliage
... the mist suddenly disappeared and we saw it rolling up the steep and wooded sides of Taupiri, at whose sides we found ourselves and by a vigorous excertion of the paddle, we shot out from the dark and sluggish water of the Maungawera, which might be about thirty or forty feet wide, into the clear and azure stream of the broad Waikato (River), glittering under a brilliant sun, just opposite to the pa of Kaitotehe, where we landed and were met by our former hospitable entertainer Mr ASHWELL
... having procured a guide I proceeded to ascend Taupiri by crossing the river and commenced climbing straight up the steep face of the hill, fairly obliged to pull myself up by seizing hold of the young underwood and this, hand over hand, reached the summit - but here the magnificant prospect which presented itself amply repaid me for all my toil. At my feet, for the sides of Taupiri are so steep that one almost overhangs it, lay the river, winding either way through the pass, amidst rich cultivations, among which were scattered the pas that line the bank

Jan 20 ... after three hours of most rugged travellig we reached the crest of a hill from which we had a glimpse of the Manukau, its slopes were covered with clumps of fine puriri, which if more easy of access would have been a perfect depot of fencing materials
... we soon reached the deserted pa of Maketu, seated on a projecting rock
... a walk of three miles brought us to the main track to Auckland, we passed Papakura and reached Otahu, the fine farm of Mr FAIRBURN, and we were much fatigued by nearly a twelve hour walk

Jan 21 ... we left Otahu and reached Auckland. We were amused with the astonishment of one of our attendants who had never been in Auckland, the broad made road, the houses, the carts and horses and above all, the ships and the steamer

NOTE
as seen above there appears to be many journals missng between May & September and again between October & December. They will be added here if found

PHOTO
MOUNT TAUPIRI
Kaitotehe, the pa of Potatau Te Wherowhero, with Mount Taupiri in the background 1846. Mount Taupiri is a sacred mountain and burial ground for the Waikato tribe