A FISHERMANS Paradise company has been recognised for running tours through The Rocks in Sydney to teach people about Maori history and heritage in Australia.
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Hohepa Ruhe and Melinda Loe moved to Australia from New Zealand in 2001 and spent many years living in Sydney and working in The Rocks, where they were amazed to find how much Maori history was in the area.
“When we arrived in Australia we were hearing stories of Maori artefacts, particularly around The Rocks,” Melinda explained.
Together they managed to piece together a detailed picture of the Maori in Australia dating back more than 220 years to the 1790s.
A small number of Maori were convicts, but the vast majority came to Australia as travellers, learning about the land, or many came while working on ships because they were renowned sailors, Melinda explained.
“At one stage every boat in the harbour had a Maori crew,” she said.
They also uncovered strong links between Maori and the South Coast, including one of the region’s first white settlers, Revered Tomas Kendall, having previously been a missionary in New Zealand and being the first to write a book of the Maori language.
When they moved to Fishermans Paradise in 2013, Melinda and Hohepa established their own tourism business, Kotahi Tourism, and put together two-hour walking tours around The Rocks to reveal the area’s long-standing Maori history.
Poihākena tours: stories of Māori in Sydney, last week won the 2015 Education and Interpretation awardin the National Trust Heritage Awards.
National Trust NSW CEO Brian Scarsbrick said the Heritage Awards were as much about our future as they were about our past.
“We owe a debt of gratitude to all our award winners including Kotahi Tourism. What they have managed to give us what is always a wonderful gift for the future,” he said.
Melinda said one in five of the world’s Maori lived in Australia, and the tours were a good way of helping them connect with their culture.
“Maori history in Australia is really rich and really connected to the history of the entire nation,” she said.
Kotahi Tourism also runs tourism programs linked to Australia’s indigenous culture, along with educational programs in schools.