Ohope & Tauwhare Pa

Ohope is an up-market suburb of Whakatane, both of them in the Bay of Plenty. I just stayed overnight there but I reckon I could settle here quite happily, particularly with beaches like this at sunset: 

The following morning I climbed up to the local Pā. A Māori Pā was (or still is) a fortress/market/settlement all rolled into one – in fact very much what towns and villages are the world over, and often of course built on a defendable hill. Tauwhare Pā has the distinction of falling between two Maori tribes (iwi) and contolling access to two large natural harbours, so it was fought over and changed hands a few times. 

Happily nowadays the Pā is just a historic site, guarded by some Maori women commemorated in the entrance arch: Mereaira Rangihoea, who intervened in an argument between two Maori tribes and led them to peaceful co-existence; and her sister Mereaira Koroahi (it doesn’t say what she did, but as they say – ‘behind every great woman there’s a great woman’.) Also Nga-Uri-o-te-Keepa-Toihau, which I interpret as ‘all the rest of you’.