Motuopae Island

Looking out across the Harbour this afternoon, you can see the Port of Tauranga in the distance - all the giant cranes. In the foreground is Motuopae Island - the afternoon sun highlighting the grave stones. I looked up Wiki and found the following information.

Motuopae Island, or Peach Island, sits in the Waikareao Estuary in the Tauranga Harbour, not far from Judea Pa. Motuopae was originally a hillock among many small hills inland of Otumoetai. Motuopae was in love with one of these hills but as so often happens, the lady did not respond to him at all. She turned her attention to another. Motuopae could not bear to stay around and watch his object of love ignoring him in favour of someone else.

He decided one night to swim out to sea. However, he dithered about this idea for too long before he started on his journey. He had only got as far as the Waikareao Estuary before the sun rose. He could only travel at night. The first rays of the early morning sun caught him on the mudflats of Waikareao and fixed him in his place there. He could not move. And there he sits facing out to sea.

Motuopae belongs to Ngai Tamarawaho of Huria, Judea Pa. It was once the home of their ancestor Kinotaraia and his descendant of Tuarutapu. Some say Tuaurutapu was killed on the sand banks of Motupae and the local people took the hapu name of Patutahuna. Today it is their urupa, a burial ground, where the bones of their ancestors rest in peace. It was called Peach Island by the Pakeha (Europeans) because of all the peach trees that grew wild there. But it would be a very daring child who would go and break the tapu on that island by eating any of those peaches.