I’ve lived in this city a while and I thought I knew everything about the Auckland Domain; the museum, the Wintergarden, the annual ANZAC Day commemorations, the duck ponds and cricket matches. Then occasionally you scratch the surface a bit deeper.
Pōtatau Te Wherowhero, the first Māori king, lived in a cottage on a hill in the Domain. I was a bit skeptical because Pōtatau was a Tainui (Waikato) leader. We’re talking mid 1840’s before he was coronated and things had ‘gone south’ quite literally with the Crown heading south to claim as much Tainui land as they could.
There are no signs of the cottage today but if it were still there it would have a clear view of the museum, the hospital and the Sky Tower.
In it’s place grows this tōtara tree planted by his great granddaughter Princess Te Puea Herangi in 1940 on the centenary of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.