Date visited: 2 February 2022
Elevation: 89m (before being quarried)
Volcanic history
Te Puke o Taramainuku, or Ōtara Hill, was a small scoria cone volcano in the Auckland Volcanic Field that erupted around 56,500 years ago.
Like so many of the Auckland maunga, it was quarried away in the 20th century. The maunga was the site of a pā named “Te Puke Ō Tara”, which means “the place of Tara”.
Although almost nothing remains of it today, Te Puke o Taramainuku is located between Green Hill or Greenmount (the northern green area in this photo) and Hampton Park (the southern green area).
According to its Wikipedia entry, lava flows from the eruption of Te Puke o Taramainuku reached as far as where Ōtara Town Centre is located today (that’s a distance of about 3km).
Our visit
Again, this was a box-checking visit before moving on to the hopefully more exciting Mātanginui/Green Hill and Hampton Park. Nothing to see here.
Happy adventuring (hopefully the next one’s more interesting),
