In Easter 1955, I took a party of Senior Scouts from Wellington up the Whanganui River by road to Operiki Pah. It was a joint exercise with Wanganui Senior Scouts (the Senior Scout section of Scouting in New Zealand was recreated as "Venturer Scouts" in 1967).
We mapped the Pa, and then went on upriver to Matahiwi where we borrowed a couple of Maori canoes to take us across the river to Karitia to view the carved Meeting House (Wharepuni). As far as I know, there are no canoes like these left on the river. A great pity!
The map we made of the Operiki Pa is now in the Whanganui Regional Museum.
The wharepuni, named Poutama, had been built in 1884, and had some wonderful carvings in and on it. This building was recognised as being one of the finest in the district. When we saw it, it was in a bad state of disrepair.
In 1967, the wharepuni was taken apart and reassembled at Koriniti. The tahuhu (ridgepole) posed some problems as it was 42 ft long (12.8 metres) and 2 ft (600mm) across , but it was fitted with additional bouyancy in the form of a couple of 44 gallon drums and paddled down the Whanganui River to Koriniti. The rest of the carvings were taken down by maori canoe.
Poutama (in a shortened form due to lack of finance) was opened in 1976. It was extended to its full length and rededicated on February 1994.
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The lintel carvings (pare) are of Aokehu and his two sons, Te Aomaro and Marama.
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