… and despite the work-from-home habit many of us have been nursing since COVID, we’re setting records for patronage. In the first week alone, over half a million train journeys were taken!
One question people ask me is who named the stations and why? So I thought I would share the answers.
When City Rail Link Ltd and Auckland Transport applied to the New Zealand Geographic Board to name the stations, the names they put forward were gifts from mana whenua – the iwi of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Two stations are brand new and two have been renamed, and each carries a story.
For many Ponsonby News readers, Karanga-a-Hape will be their local station. The name means “the call of Hape”.
Hape – also known as Rakataura – was a powerful tohunga or priest of the Tainui waka. According to traditional kōrero, Hape had a club foot and was left behind when Tainui departed Hawaiki for Aotearoa, considered physically unable to make the arduous voyage.
But Hape was not to be left behind. After performing karakia, the story tells us he was carried across the ocean by his kaitiaki (guardian), Kaiwhare – described as a large stingray – arriving in Tāmaki Makaurau before Tainui.
When Tainui arrived, Hape called out a great karanga, or ceremonial call, to welcome the people who had left him behind. That story is remembered in Karanga-a-Hape – for me, a powerful story of resilience, mana and overcoming exclusion.
A minute down the line is Te Waihorotiu Station.
The Waihorotiu stream once flowed openly down the Queen Street valley, past the ancient Horotiu pā and into the Waitematā, sustaining the people and environment around it. As Auckland grew in the 19th century, the stream was channelled underground, but its waters still flow beneath the city today.
Horotiu is the name of the taniwha and kaitiaki associated with these waters. Te Waihorotiu – the waters of Horotiu. On Victoria Street, the bronze sculpture Horotiu – depicted as a tuna kūwharuwharu, or longfin eel – represents this guardian.
Then there is Waitematā Station, formerly Britomart, standing on land reclaimed from the harbour (as is much of our waterfront land).
One traditional explanation of Waitematā is “the waters of Te Matā”. In traditional stories, an early ancestor placed a mauri – a spiritually significant stone – at Te Matā, a small rock in the harbour also known as Boat Rock.
Other mana whenua traditions link matā with obsidian – volcanic glass – and the name with the harbour’s flat, glassy waters.
Finally, Maungawhau Station.
The name means “mountain of the whau tree”. Whau once grew on this maunga and was an important taonga or treasure – its extraordinarily light, buoyant wood was used for fishing and the plant for rongoā Māori, or traditional Māori medicine.
Maungawhau (Mount Eden) is also part of Tāmaki Makaurau’s great volcanic landscape. The station design draws on traditional stories associated with these volcanic fields, using basalt, water and other elements to carry the story of the landscape into the station itself.
I hope you’ve learned something from these names. If, like me, you want to say them correctly, the CRL website has pronunciation guides:
www.cityraillink.co.nz/meet-your-stations
