About Te Wairoa Falls
Te Wairoa Falls (also called Wairere Falls) was our waterfalling excuse to check out the tragic Buried Village of Te Wairoa.
At a reported cumulative height of about 30m, it was one of the taller waterfalls that we visited in the greater Rotorua area.
It was also essentially a private waterfall as we had to visit the archaeological site of Te Wairoa.
The Pink and White Terraces and the Mt Tarawera Eruption
Like the ancient Roman city of Pompeii being buried by the pyroclastic flow of Mt Vesuvius, Te Wairoa was buried by the fatal 1886 eruption of Mt Tarawera.
In addition to the tragic loss of human life, the volcano also destroyed the famous Pink and White Terraces.
The series of geothermal terraces appeared to be a much larger version of what the Minerva Terrace in Yellowstone National Park was like.
At a cumulative height of over 250m, it anecdotally earned the title of the Eighth Wonder of the World. During its heyday, the terraces had attracted artists and visitors from around the world.
Reportedly, two separate boatload of tourists traveling between Lake Tarawera and Te Wairoa village had reported seeing a ghostly war canoe with mourning Maoris on the morning of 31 May 1886.
A tohunga (Maori priest) had interpreted this as an omen of the volcanic eruption that eleven days later would come to fruition.
Touring Te Wairoa and the Te Wairoa Falls
Julie and I paid the $20 NZD per person admission price as of our rainy visit in November 2004.
Then, we stayed mostly out of the rain as we strolled through the museum-like displays and outdoor exhibits that displayed the lifestyle of the villagers before being buried that fateful day.
Te Wairoa Falls sat towards the end of our one-way stroll through the village, but it was merely a side attraction even though it was the primary reason why we came for a visit.
Once we had gotten past the ruins and displays, we then found a fork in the path where we choose the one that took us on a boardwalk with wooden steps descending into the thick bush.
That path then descended alongside the impressive waterfall where we got the views you see on this page.
Given the thick foliage around the waterfall, we could only see maybe only 20m of it at any given time so it didn’t appear as tall as the measurements would suggest.
After the waterfall detour ended, we passed by one lookout that should have allowed us to gaze at the imposing Mt Tarawera.
Unfortunately, due to the rain during our visit, the clouds had stubbornly kept the mountain from our sight.
Overall, it took us a little over an hour to go through the village, but we very easily could have taken more time here to slowly go through the exhibits and better understand what Maori life was like back then.
Authorities
Te Wairoa Falls resides in the Buried Village of Te Wairoa Archaeological Site near Rotorua in the Bay of Plenty Region of North Island, New Zealand. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, visit their website.
We drove to Te Wairoa Buried Village from Rotorua.
So from the town centre of Rotorua, we headed east on SH30A, then continued east along SH30 for another kilometre past its junction with SH30A.
At that point, we turned right to go onto Tarawera Rd, and we followed it for about 12km to the well-signed Buried Village.
Rotorua was about 3 hours drive southeast of Auckland or just about 90 minutes drive east of Hamilton.
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