For those of you interested in a bit of history… here is a quick summary of the Local Maori history for the Whakatipu area.
Whakatipu, along with other areas in inland Otago, was important to Southern Māori as a source of items such as tuna (eels), manu (birds), ti kōuka (Cabbage Tree), mountain daisy leaves (used for cloaks) and taramea (Spaniard Grass) from which a fragrant oil was extracted.
Important settlement sites were at Tāhuna (Queenstown), Te Kirikiri (Frankton) and at Puahuru (junction of Kawarau and Shotover Rivers). Other village and camping sites in the Whakatipu area have been found at Tahuna (Glenorchy), Punatapu (Bob’s Cove), (Takerehaka (Kingston), Kawarau Gorge, Lake Hayes, Wāwāhi Waka (Pigeon Island) and Mavora Lakes. In the Upper Clutha, Take Kārara was a settlement at the southern end of Lake Wānaka, now part of the current Wānaka township and Manuhaea was a settlement and kāika mahika kai (food gathering place)
The Whakatipu and Wānaka region was typical of the whole of the interior of Te Waipounamu. It had some permanent settlements, but was largely a seasonal resource base for highly mobile coastal communities.