Answers to yesterday's Southern NZ place name quiz
How did you get on? Feel free to dispute any of our findings and lodge a complaint.
1. The Maori name for Lake Manapouri was Moturau, from 'motu' island and 'rau' lots and it was a good descriptive name for it. Nobody really knows how it ended up with the wrong name!
2. Waitaki would be pronounced Waitangi (just as Aoraki/Aorangi and Otakou/Otago are the same) in the Northern dialects. The Southern dialect famously doesn't have the 'ng' sound.
3. Middlemarch is named after George Eliot's novel of the same name. No - just joking. There were apparently two creek boundaries or 'marches' and that is what it is named after. Much more mundane.
4. It is the Clutha River. Most places named after Robert Molineux/Molyneux (Captain Cook's sailing master) have since had their names changed and he has fallen somewhat into obscurity.
5. Named after Captain William Cargill. The Gaelic prefix inver- means 'at the mouth of' but is normally only applied to a river and not to a man's name.
6. The Maori name for Rock & Pillar was Patearoa. That name is now claimed only by the small settlement 19km from Ranfurly - and it has a fabulous pub if you are ever out that way!!
7. For a while, Roxburgh was known as Teviot.
8. An English prizefighter, William Abednego Thompson was known as Bendigo. He gave his name to an Australian boxer after whom the Australian goldfield was named. It was brought from there to Otago.
Think of all the wonderful history/trivia/facts/figures you could learn and bore your friends with if you had one of these books.
