He hokinga mahara

Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō Trustee Denis Gapper says, although short, his journey on Te Awatea Hou was unforgettable.
Parked up on the shore of Rotoiti, watching as two waka filled with Ngāti Apa whānau disappear into the distance, kaumatua Denis Gapper can’t help but think about his own time as a kaihoe.
He was a younger man then; it was 1990 and up to then he’d never seen a waka ply the waters of Tōtaranui (Queen Charlotte Sound).
But Te Awatea Hou would change that. And for several years after her launch, everytime he was in Picton, he would make a special trip round the bay to where Te Awatea Hou was moored just to breathe in the sight.
Built by Te Runanganui o Te Tau Ihu o te Waka a Māui, a confederation of the Tauihu tribes, for the 1990 150th Waitangi Day commemorations, the 20-tonne, 30-metre long waka made dozens of trips in the few years after her launch at Waikawa on January 20, 1990, involving hundreds of paddlers all up. One of those early voyages, in the autumn of 1990, was a 42-hour journey from Waikawa to Nelson via French Pass. It was that trip that Denis was lucky enough to get a place on.