Daily Photo – Dirt Track near the Waihao River

I pulled over near the Waihao River on a still Canterbury afternoon. I had planned on walking for a bit along the river bank but it wasn’t completely accessible, which was a disappointment. Instead, I explored a dirt road that gave an obscured view of the river as it slipped quietly towards the sea. No dramatic gorge or thunderous rapids announcing its arrival. Just a steady current making its way through paddocks though it has all the time in the world.

The name Waihao comes from te reo Māori and is usually translated as “water of net fishing” or “water with eels”. Hao refers to the shortfin eel, once an important and reliable food source. It is a practical name, the sort that tells you what you need to know – less poetry, more instruction.

For generations the river has been significant to local iwi and hapū, including the Waitaha, Kāti Māmoe and Ngāi Tahu iwi, whose histories are connected through the landscape. Long before fences, bridges and survey lines cut the plains into neat geometry, this was mahinga kai country. Shortfin eels moved through the waters in season. Inanga flickered in the shallows. Freshwater mussels lay buried in the mud. The river was a pantry and pathway, sustaining communities while also guiding them.

Oral histories connect the area to the ancestral canoe Uruao and to explorers such as Rākaihautū and Rokohouia, who journeyed through Te Waipounamu naming lakes and rivers as they travelled. Stories of Paewhenua, a sacred adze, and of taniwha guiding travellers along the river add layers to the landscape, reminding us that waterways were understood not as scenery or resource alone, but as part of an identity.