travel costs to and from Rotorua. A big mihi to our ahi kā ki Arowhenua for hosting our rōpū during the latter stages of our Aoraki Bound journey too. He mihi nui hoki ki tōku Upoko o Arowhenua Tewera King for being there to acknowledge our rōpū at the end of the journey . Finally a huge thank you to everyone else in my life who supported and who continue to support me today. Tīhei mauri ora. Ngā mihi, Jordan Watson
pounamu trails was an absolute buzz. However, being able to do that with a rōpū of such awesome people honestly multiplied the richness of the experience a hundredfold. The group lessons along the way were some of the most powerful and important I’ve experienced. I’ve now witnessed first-hand what it is to have mana and to whakamana my fellow travellers in our rōpū. The actual Outward Bound content can’t be overlooked as well and the lessons from that side of the course were just as vital. The concluding half-marathon has encouraged me to run daily and I’m feeling amazing as a result. Overall, I’d like to re-iterate how amazing this course is and how silly you’d be to pass it up if you get the chance. I wish to acknowledge Te Atiawa o te Waka–a-Māui Trust for the scholarship assistance to attend Aoraki Bound. Without your assistance I wouldn’t have been able to have such a great experience. Thanks Te Atiawa for the financial support I received to help me take up this wero and I’m happily forever in your debt because of it. I wish to also acknowledge Te Rūnaka o Arowhenua and the people of my marae at Arowhenua for supporting me financially, so I could have the right clothing and equipment to do Aoraki Bound and for covering my
Whaia e koe ki te iti kahuraki, ki te tuohu koe, me mauka teitei, ko Aoraki. Seek the treasure you value most dearly, if you must bow your head let it be to a lofty mountain, Aoraki.
Jordan Watson - grateful for the Aoraki Bound experience.
Heritage travellers – The Lewis family
Who can tell why our whānau have heard the ancestors’ call so strongly? Some say the deeper the wound the stronger the call, and the yearning will not rest until it is satisfied.
burning, have big wide, open spaces in their hearts as we come crashing through protocols and stirring things up in our innocence and ignorance. We give heartfelt thanks for being welcomed home, as we were here, to Te Hapa o Niu Tireni - words cannot express - they just can’t. Thank you to the Waaka whānau, Te Wera and Gwen and all who made us feel so welcome.
And here we sit, in the wharenui at the marae we are told we affiliate to - Arowhenua - our ancestral grandmothers Potete Ashwell and her daughter Rebecca Lewis and all our kaumātua now passed on, being represented by we 13 “very blond” Ngāi Tahu Ozzies.
Though only 13 of us made it to Arowhenua on this day, there are 23 of us in the Lewis family Ngāi Tahu Heritage Travellers. Our eldest traveller, Uncle Terry Lewis, is 87 and our two children, Darcie, 11 and Scarlet, 4 are the youngest - three generations returning to the spirit home of our “Dadda” Lewis.
Thirty years of journeying to reconnect with our whakapapa has brought us here. We honour those who took the first steps - our Auntie Grace Rowan and her daughter Rhonda, dear Vivienne Lewis and our darling Auntie Jacqueline McMahon. Uncle Harold Ashwell has influenced our searches and stories and his nephew Rex’s wife, our Te Wai Pounamu whakapapa researcher Lauri - to whom we give many thanks, has given so much information, guidance and hospitality.
John Henry left his whānau and home shores - plus his mother Rebecca Lewis (nee Ashwell) and younger siblings - in the late 1890s for reasons we are unsure of. He travelled to south east Queensland, to a town called Goondiwindi, where he worked as a shearer. He then met and married a first-generation Australian, Mary Ellen Ursular Hammill, whose parents had come from Ireland like so many others, looking for a better life. John Henry and Mary Ellen settled in Warwick, a couple of hundred kilometres east of Goondiwindi and created a whānau of four boys and four girls, who in turn have created their own families who have spread out across the globe.
Uncle Joe Waaka is not sure of our connection here and to be honest, for us it remains clouded in mystery still - which teaches us so much - about ourselves, about whakapapa, about the connections lost and the consequences of being sheared from our roots and set adrift. Thankfully though, not all is lost. The ancestors are patient. And those here, who keep the home fires 17