BOPDHB History Whakatāne Hospital History Book | Page 13

An early photograph of the main street in Tāneatua showing Puketi to the south in the centre of
the picture. Photo: Whakatāne District Museum & Gallery (178)

Puketi is a steep escarpment with a flattened top that rises from the edge of
Te Waimana River close to where it joins the Whakatāne River just to the south
of Tāneatua. Ngāi Tūhoe had a Pā and food storage pits on top of Puketi
and stories are told16 of Ngāi Tūhoe’s vigorous defence of the site in earlier
years. Following the Ōpōuriao settlement in 1896, Puketi was regularly used
as a convenient ‘overnight stop’ for drovers moving horses, cattle and sheep
from Gisborne through to Rotorua (via Rerewhakaaitu) as it was just over the
bridge (built 1911) from Tāneatua Township where all the usual supplies could
be purchased. Puketi is clearly visible to anyone travelling over the Tāneatua
Bridge and would not have been a wise choice as the site for the Hospital is
totally isolated from Tāneatua when Te Waimana River is in flood.
On 13 December 1911 Alex Peebles was elected Chairman of the Board and the future use of the
Hospital Reserve on Te Puke o Ōtarahīoi was still being actively pursued. However in the same year
the Board’s attention was drawn by the Whakatāne County Council to Section 12, Rangitaiki, a Scenic
Reserve on the Awakeri/Te Teko highway known as the Pukaahu Hot Springs. By this time the healing
powers of the natural hot water springs and mud pools in Rotorua were well known and it is likely
this influenced the choice of the site. (See page 9). Departmental officials visited the site but were not
prepared to recommend it as being suitable for a Hospital due to ‘insufficient flat land’ and, rather
curiously, suggested land near Mangaroa (half-way between Ōmāio and Te Kaha, east of Ōpōtiki) as
an alternative.

James Cowan, Hero Stories of New Zealand, (Auckland, Harry H Tombs, 1935) pp 163-168

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