A Virtual Field Trip to Maungakiekie/One Tree Hill

Social Studies Online

Learning outcomes:
Students will:
describe how different people use and have used Maungakiekie/One Tree Hill and Cornwall Park
explain how different people view Maungakiekie/One Tree Hill-Cornwall Park

Getting Thinking
Who has used the place in the past?
Who are all the different people who use Maungakiekie/One Tree Hill-Cornwall Park today?

Let's Roll
How are you going to travel? Shank's pony or wheels?

Remember to fill in your Learning Guide at each stop along the way.

First stop
Huia Lodge - the Cornwall Park Visitor Centre - which has heaps of information about the history of the Park. You can find out about the Waiohua people who lived on and around Maungakiekie. Later on we will visit some of their terrace gardens and fortifications. You can find out about the early Pakeha settlers like Sir John Logan Campbell who farmed the land then turned it into a park. There was even a golf course in the Park and around the volcanic cone in the first half of last century.

Second stop
People come to the Park for a day out - to picnic in the specially provided (and free) picnic and BBQ areas, or walk along the well laid out paths and avenues of trees.

Third stop
Some people who come to the Park check out the information plaques dotted around and learn about the U.S. Army hospital that occupied park land from 1942-75. Or about the thousands of trees planted in the Park.

Fourth stop
Others come here because it is a safe place to exercise and have fun - riding your scooter or bike down the road to the summit of Maungakiekie/One Tree Hill can be exciting. As long as there are no cars in the way.

Fifth stop
From the summit road you can see evidence of how Maori used the volcano. There are terraces that were probably occupied by a family or whanau. The living area of the pa may have looked something like this.

Sixth stop
The summit was the tihi of the pa - a sacred place where the chief lived. Today the summit is occupied by a monument that was built to Sir John Logan Campbell's specifications and provided for in his will. Campbell wanted it to be a memorial to the "Great Maori Race" which was believed to be dying out at the beginning of last century. Today people from all over the world walk around the summit, sit and take in the views over Tamaki Makaurau/Auckland and take photographs - just as they did a hundred years ago.

Seventh stop
From the summit you can go down through the ditch and bank of the final defences (the ones protecting the tihi) into the Central Crater. Leave your mountain bikes up on the road if you have brought them. It might be fun to ride down the slopes and through the defences but it might damage these important archaeological sites.

Eighth stop
Part way down the hill is the Sorrento, a restaurant and conference centre that advertises itself as being "in the park". It used to be the Golf Club clubhouse.

Ninth stop
The playground at the foot of the volcano attracts kids of all ages. There are heaps of attractions including a flying fox.

Tenth stop
Wherever you are in Auckland looking at Maungakiekie/One Tree Hill these days, you won't see one tree on the summit at all. Not from the east or from the south or from the original entrance to the pa. A hundred years ago this is the view you would have had from the original entrance - two trees and no monument. In 1994 a Maori activist attacked the tree on the summit of Maungakiekie with a chainsaw. Do you know why he did it? In October 2000 the tree became too dangerous and had to be removed. Many Aucklanders were sad to see one of the symbols of Auckland disappear. Others weren't at all sad.