Centre of North Island claims rather a muddle

By ELIZABETH BINNING

Where is the exact centre of the North Island? Waharoa? Mt Titiraupenga? Or somewhere else?

Several places are laying claim to be at the centre of the North Island - a point many people looking at a map often assume is somewhere near Lake Taupo.

But if you travel through the Waikato and into the King Country, several places along the way lay claim to being at the very centre.

Just north of Matamata, the tiny town of Waharoa is having a plaque engraved with the words "Middle of North Island. Waharoa. You are Here."

It will accompany an existing trig station, which locals claim has marked the centre of the North Island for nearly 100 years.

But those who head south for an hour will find another claim.

Near the base of Mt Titiraupenga, in the Pureora Forest, sits a small sign and obelisk also claiming to mark the middle of the North Island.

Land Information NZ says neither claim is correct.

Chief Topographer John Spittal said there was no exact centre of the North Island. "The reality is that New Zealand is an uneven shape. There is no practical centre."

There were several ways in which a mid-point could be worked out, he said, but each method gave a different location.

Staff at the Hamilton Linz branch used the midpoints of the North Island's longitude and latitude to locate Horahora, a small farming community just south of Cambridge, as the centre point. Ironically, Horahora makes no claim to the title at all.

Department of Conservation area manager Ray Scrimgeour said the point in the Pureora Forest was worked out by a local surveyor, who cut out the shape of the North Island then found the point where it balanced on a pin.



In Waharoa the claim comes back to the fact they have the trig, which was erected in 1911 by surveyor R. T. Goulding.

Resident Ted Guy said the town might not look as though it is in the centre of the island but that was not going to change a well-known belief in the community.

The new plaque, which will also show different landmarks in the Waikato, will soon be mounted at a popular rest area on State Highway 27.

Waipa District Councillor Grahame Webber said it presented the Horahora region with a possible boost.

"I lived in Horahora for 30 years and this is the first time I've heard of it," he said. "It offers a wonderful marketing idea for the Waipa District Council."

Competing claims

* Waharoa, 6km north of Matamata. A trig on Landsdowne Rd marks the spot.

* An obelisk in Pureora Forest, between Te Kuiti and Mangakino in the eastern King Country.

* Land Information NZ says the exact centre is, in fact, 2km southwest of the Horahora junction (on the eastern slopes of Mt Maungatautari). Horahora is next to Lake Karapiro, just south west of Cambridge.

* Transit NZ says the midway distance between Cape Reinga and Wellington, via SH27, would be about 3km on the Tirau side of Hinuera. The midway point on SH1 would be Ngaruawahia.