Maungakiekie / One Tree Hill

Maungakiekie, the hill of the kiekie vine, is a scoria volcano older than 28,500 years in the middle of Auckland, and its terraces record one of the largest Maori pa in the country: thousands of people once lived across its four defended summits, in sleeping-house terraces above kumara storage pits, garden mounds, and earth ovens, and the landform is described by its own governing body as among the most extensive pre-European site complexes in New Zealand. Its modern name comes from a single totara on the highest point, felled by settlers in 1852; a Monterey pine planted by John Logan Campbell's grove became "the one tree" of the twentieth century until attacks left it unsafe and it was removed in 2000; in 2016 the mountain's governors planted totara and pohutukawa on the same spot to begin a new grove.

The maunga is legally what it always was in Maori terms: an ancestor. Under the Treaty redress legislation of 2014, Maungakiekie is vested in the iwi and hapu of Tamaki Makaurau and co-governed by the Tupuna Maunga Authority, which has closed the summit road to private vehicles, restored native planting, and manages the site as wahi tapu, a sacred place, with tikanga expectations rather than tickets. Campbell's obelisk, completed in 1948 and unveiled by the Maori King Koroki, stands on the summit as his memorial to the Maori people, a complicated gesture sitting on a living ancestor. Visitors walk it free of charge, with gate hours instead of fences, and the first rule is the Authority's own: stay off the terraces and pits that are the pa's remaining body.

Visiting

The Tupuna Maunga Authority's Maungakiekie page carries the access rules: free entry, gates summer 7am-8:30pm and winter 7am-7pm, summit vehicle-free since 2018, dogs on leash.

Photo: russellstreet, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons ([source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maungakiekie_One_Tree_Hill_in_2008_02.jpg))