Waitomo Caves
Waitomo is a rural community in the King Country region of New Zealand's North Island. There are several solutional cave systems in the area around the village, which are popular tourist attractions. Restaurants and accommodation are centred in the village to serve visiting tourists. The word ''Waitomo'' comes from the Māori language: ''wai'' meaning water and ''tomo'' meaning a doline or sinkhole; it can thus be translated to be "water passing through a hole". The caves are formed in Oligocene limestone. The historic Waitomo Caves Hotel is located in Waitomo Caves village. History The village Waitomo Caves is named for the hundreds of caves present in the spectacular karst landscape. The limestone landscape of the Waitomo District area has been the centre of increasingly popular commercial caving tourism since before 1900. Initially mostly consisting of impromptu trips guided by local Māori people, Māori, a large cave system near Waitomo Caves were nationalised by the C ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sinkhole
A sinkhole is a depression or hole in the ground caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer. The term is sometimes used to refer to doline, enclosed depressions that are also known as shakeholes, and to openings where surface water enters into underground passages known as ''ponor'', swallow hole or swallet. A ''cenote'' is a type of sinkhole that exposes groundwater underneath. ''Sink'', and ''stream sink'' are more general terms for sites that drain surface water, possibly by infiltration into sediment or crumbled rock. Most sinkholes are caused by Karst topography, karst processes – the chemical dissolution of carbonate rocks, collapse or suffosion processes. Sinkholes are usually circular and vary in size from tens to hundreds of Metre, meters both in diameter and depth, and vary in form from soil-lined bowls to bedrock-edged chasms. Sinkholes may form gradually or suddenly, and are found worldwide. Formation Natural processes Sinkholes may capture surf ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Waitomo Caves Museum
The Waitomo Caves Discovery Centre is a museum located in the town of Waitomo in the North Island of New Zealand. The museum is also referred to as the Waitomo Caves Discovery Centre, the Waitomo Museum of Caves and the Waitomo Education Centre. Establishment The museum is run by a charitable trust, and was established in 1973 by the local community. The museum was originally located in two rooms of the historic Waitomo Caves Hotel. During its first five years of operation, the community raised money for a purpose-built location in the Waitomo Caves township and the building was opened in late 1981. The ceremony was held on 17 October 1981, and the museum was Jim Bolger, MP for the King Country (New Zealand electorate), King Country and Minister of Labour. The land upon which the museum now stands belongs to the Tanetinorau Opataia Whānau Trust, to whom it was returned in 1988. The tupuna, Tane Tinorau, lived on the land known as Taware prior to its being compulsorily acquired ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The New Zealand Herald
''The New Zealand Herald'' is a daily newspaper published in Auckland, New Zealand, owned by New Zealand Media and Entertainment, and considered a newspaper of record for New Zealand. It has the largest newspaper circulation in New Zealand, peaking at over 200,000 copies in 2006, although circulation of the daily ''Herald'' had declined to 100,073 copies on average by September 2019. The ''Herald''s publications include a daily paper; the ''Weekend Herald'', a weekly Saturday paper; and the ''Herald on Sunday'', which has 365,000 readers nationwide. The ''Herald on Sunday'' is the most widely read Sunday paper in New Zealand. The paper's website, nzherald.co.nz, is viewed 2.2 million times a week and was named Voyager Media Awards' News Website of the Year in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023. In 2023, the ''Weekend Herald'' was awarded Weekly Newspaper of the Year and the publication's mobile application was the News App of the Year. Its main circulation area is the Auckland R ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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New Zealand Automobile Association
The New Zealand Automobile Association (NZAA or AA) is an incorporated society (non-profit organization) that offers various services to its members. These services include breakdown assistance, vehicle repairs, driver licensing, driver training, travel maps, accommodation guides and bookings, insurance, and finance. Formed in 1903, the AA is the oldest and largest motoring club in the country. As of 2020, it has over 1.7 million members across New Zealand. History In May 1903, Dr George Thomas Humphrey de Clive-Lowe invited about 20 new motoring enthusiasts to consider his idea to start an automobile club. First in Auckland, followed by Canterbury a few months later, motoring clubs began to dot the country with at least 15 different automobile associations registered by 1930. During the 1980s, 15 district automobile associations began to merge to form the New Zealand Automobile Association and became the country's largest club. The final merger was achieved in 1991 under the l ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hangatiki Railway Station
Hangatiki railway station was a flag station on the North Island Main Trunk in New Zealand. In 1915 Hangatiki was described as a small township with a post and telegraph office, where passengers for "the famous Waitomo Caves, Waitomo and Ruakuri caves alight". The guidebook said Waitomo was away, "by good metalled road, a conveyance meeting the express trains and conveying passengers to the excellent Waitomo Caves Hotel, Government Accommodation House at Waitomo." The fare was 2/6 each way (about $18 in 2015 money). History Coates & Metcalfe were the contractors for the extension of this section of the NIMT, from Ōtorohanga to Te Kuiti. The station area had been levelled by May 1886. Until August 1887, the contractors provided goods trains. By October 1887 goods trains ran on Mondays and Fridays. New Zealand Railways Department took over from the contractors, adding a passenger service was added on those days from 2 December 1887. By 1896 there was a shelter shed, platfor ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Encyclopedia Of New Zealand
''Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand'' is an online encyclopedia established in 2001 by the New Zealand Government's Ministry for Culture and Heritage. The web-based content was developed in stages over the next several years; the first sections were published in 2005, and the last in 2014 marking its completion. ''Te Ara'' means "the pathway" in the Māori language, and contains over three million words in articles from over 450 authors. Over 30,000 images and video clips are included from thousands of contributors. History New Zealand's first recognisable encyclopedia was ''The Cyclopedia of New Zealand'', a commercial venture compiled and published between 1897 and 1908 in which businesses or people usually paid to be covered. In 1966 the New Zealand Government published ''An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand'', its first official encyclopedia, in three volumes. Although now superseded by ''Te Ara'', its historical importance led to its inclusion as a separate digital reso ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Crown
The Crown is a political concept used in Commonwealth realms. Depending on the context used, it generally refers to the entirety of the State (polity), state (or in federal realms, the relevant level of government in that state), the executive government specifically or only to the monarch and their Viceroy, direct representatives. The term can be used to refer to the rule of law; or to the functions of executive (government), executive (the Crown-King-in-Council, in-council), legislative (the Crown-in-parliament), and judicial (the Crown on the bench) governance and the civil service. The concept of the Crown as a corporation sole developed first in the Kingdom of England as a separation of the physical crown and property of the kingdom from the person and personal property of the monarch. It spread through English and later British colonisation and developed into an imperial crown, which rooted it in the legal lexicon of all 15 Commonwealth realms, their various dependencies, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Māori People
Māori () are the Indigenous peoples of Oceania, indigenous Polynesians, Polynesian people of mainland New Zealand. Māori originated with settlers from East Polynesia, who arrived in New Zealand in several waves of Māori migration canoes, canoe voyages between roughly 1320 and 1350. Over several centuries in isolation, these settlers developed Māori culture, a distinct culture, whose language, mythology, crafts, and performing arts evolved independently from those of other eastern Polynesian cultures. Some early Māori moved to the Chatham Islands, where their descendants became New Zealand's other indigenous Polynesian ethnic group, the Moriori. Early contact between Māori and Europeans, starting in the 18th century, ranged from beneficial trade to lethal violence; Māori actively adopted many technologies from the newcomers. With the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, Treaty of Waitangi/Te Tiriti o Waitangi in 1840, the two cultures coexisted for a generation. Rising ten ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Caving
Caving, also known as spelunking (United States and Canada) and potholing (United Kingdom and Ireland), is the recreational pastime of exploring wild cave systems (as distinguished from show caves). In contrast, speleology is the scientific study of caves and the cave environment.Caving in New Zealand (from Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand, Accessed 2012-11.) The challenges involved in caving vary according to the cave being visited; in addition to the total absence of light beyond the entrance, negotiating pitches, squeezes, and water hazards can be difficult. [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Karst
Karst () is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble carbonate rocks such as limestone and Dolomite (rock), dolomite. It is characterized by features like poljes above and drainage systems with sinkholes and caves underground. There is some evidence that karst may occur in more weathering-resistant rocks such as quartzite given the right conditions. Subterranean drainage may limit surface water, with few to no rivers or lakes. In regions where the dissolved bedrock is covered (perhaps by debris) or confined by one or more superimposed non-soluble rock strata, distinctive karst features may occur only at subsurface levels and can be totally missing above ground. The study of ''paleokarst'' (buried karst in the stratigraphic column) is important in petroleum geology because as much as 50% of the world's Oil and gas reserves and resource quantification, hydrocarbon reserves are hosted in carbonate rock, and much of this is found in porous karst systems. Etymology ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Waitomo Caves Hotel
Waitomo Caves Hotel (originally called ''Waitomo House'' and later ''Government Hostel at Waitomo'') is a historic hotel built in 1908 that is located in Waitomo District, King Country above Waitomo Caves in New Zealand. The hotel initially had only six bedrooms, and was later expanded in 1927–1928 with the addition of 24 more rooms, along with a new kitchen and dining room. The building is famous for its unique style of New Zealand Victorian.Waitomo Caves Hotel , Paranormalknowledge.com December 2011 Some claim that the hotel is haunted. History Background In response to the increasing numbers of tourists that began visiting the Waitomo Caves in the late nineteenth century early cave explorer and tour guide Tāne ...[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |