Greytown county almanac

Greytown,  Te Hupenui,   is my turangawaewae, the place where I stand, the place where I was born.  Wellington and the Wairarapa are where my family settled in the nineteenth century. My ancestors walked the streets of Wellington, Pahiatua, Masterton and the shores of Lake Wairarapa, as I do now.   Scientists report, from the evidence of pollen grains, that before humans arrived here,  85-90% of New Zealand, including the Wairarapa, was covered with forest. Grassland or shrubland occurred, as it does now, on river terraces subject to regular flooding, frost-prone valley floors, steep cliffs, and active sand dunes. Outside these limited areas the forest cover was unbroken.   In this forested country, the moa roamed, its only predator the great  Haast eagle. Evidence  suggests that  m oa nested in the dunes around the Wairarapa coast and under high rock ledges.  On my sister’s farm, near the  Mangatainoka  river, when digging out drains, they would regularly recover moa bones, some of w