Rongomai Road (Pūniho)

Rongomai Road is 1.38 kilometres in length and is located 1.5 kilometres down Pāora Road, at Pūniho. The road is situated within Ngā Māhanga-a-Tāiri tribal boundaries where a portion runs parallel to Te Wai o Rongomai Stream as it heads seaward to where the old Coast Road had once run. 

The roads history began in February 1922 when one of Taranaki’s oldest surveying firms Sladden & Palmer conducted the first survey. The firm, formed in 1903, has undergone a number of name changes since. However it survives today as McKinlay Surveyors.

A 1934 survey subdivided blocks of land owned by Charles Wells and Te Para Ruakere. This survey provided Te Para access to the Ruakere Block from Pāora Road.  The survey map included three signatures - the two owners, and a witness with the explanation, “witness to the mark of Te Para Ruakere (he being unable to write)”, carefully written below his “X” shaped signature with the note, “his mark”. 

A metal road was laid during the 1940s before the road was approved as a public roadway in September 1956. The still un-named road serviced the transportation needs of the Ruakere and Mathieson families and eased the delivery of milk supply to the Pūniho dairy factory each day.  Today Rongomai Road is sealed for a distance of 550 metres until the road crosses Te Wai o Rongomai culvert, where the metal road still leads to Te Para Ruakere’s house. 

The name is likely taken from the nearby waterway, Te Wai o Rongomai.  However the name Rongomai has celestial origins in Māori folklore.  Ethnographer, S. Percy Smith found that Taranaki Māori claim to have brought Rongomai and other deities with them during the great migration aboard the Aotea waka of south Taranaki, under the guidance of captain Turi. Māori cosmological belief states Te Wai o Rongomai are the sacred waters of the eleventh heaven. 

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.