Waianiwa Pioneers - has someone got more info....

A small party of Scottish settlers landed from an open whale boat on the banks of the Oreti River.  They were descendants and relatives of John Robertson, James Wilson, Lachlan Fraser and John Wilson the earliest pioneers of Waianiwa the Maori name for "The Water of the Rainbow".

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The idea of the first settlement came to John Robertson and James Wilson when they met on the goldfields of Australia in 1855.  Hearing promising reports of New Zealand they decided to try their luck there. James Wilson, a widower with two small daughter, aged five and seven set said in the brig and Thomas and Henry and John Robertson, then unmarried set off on the 'Content', arriving in Dunedin one day before the Wilsons.  The two men then travelled overland on two horses to Murihiku. At Te Wai, the travellers met Mr and Mrs Lachlan Fraser and their two children.